Triptych
by Lord Zeuss
Summary: The Third War begins: After Malachor, the Exile answers Revan's call and reaches the Unknown Regions, where the last of the free Jedi and Sith will face a terrible, invincible enemy. *Now complete*
1. Out Of Nothing

"What's the matter with her?"

Atton stood anxiously outside the infirmary door, afraid to enter.

"Good Force, I don't know," Mira answered in a whisper.

"Do you think it might be about Mical and Bao-Dur?"

"I don't see how that's possible. She barely took two steps onto the ship before collapsing on the spot. None of us had a chance to tell her."

"I hate this. Not knowing."

"Well, Visas is with her right now. She knows more about the Force than the two of us combined; if anyone can figure out what's wrong, it'd be her."

Atton nodded in agreement before turning his concerned gaze back to the sealed infirmary door.

Inside lay General Kuryama Nari, Jedi Exile, savior of Telos, twice the destroyer of Malachor V, perhaps the best hope of resurrecting the Jedi Order. When just minutes ago they had made good their escape from the crumbling remains of Malachor V, she had fallen suddenly ill as the planet died its second death behind them.

Unconscious, she mumbled words none of them understood, trembled with uncontrollable tremors.

All around the cot where she stirred and mumbled in feverish dreams objects floated in midair, and lightning crackled between her fingertips. It was these strange and bizarre occurrences that warranted the most worry. The Miraluka who sat next to the General was at as much of a loss to explain Kuryama's condition as the rest of the crew.

Visas Marr, the last Miraluka, former servant to the Dark Lord of Hunger, sat on the infirmary's only other cot, watching her new master with fearful concern. She knew not what was afflicting Kuryama, nor how she could possibly manipulate the Force unconsciously as she was doing - something not even the most powerful of Sith Lords or Jedi Masters had ever done. All Visas knew was that Kuryama was dying. And the closer she came to death, the more extreme her unconscious use of the Force.

Since she was blind from birth as a Miraluka, Visas saw through the Force rather than eyes. All Miraluka were especially sensitive to the Force, and she was no different. Seeing through the Force was in many ways no different than seeing through eyes – though it was much different in other ways. But what Visas saw when she looked at Kuryama gave her cold shivers.

To the eyes of the Force, Kuryama did not exist.

She was but a halo without a source. A mirage within the Force, having the appearance of presence but no substance. Visas saw as it were Kuryama's reflection, the impression she made on the things around her, but never the actual source of the disturbance that would signify the person.

Deeply troubled, she rose to her feet and exited the infirmary.

"I do not know how nor why, but Kuryama is dying," Visas explained to Mira and Atton as they stood waiting for word.

"Can't you do something for her? Jedi stuff with the Force or something?" Atton mumbled, his voice rendered nearly incoherent with numb disbelief.

"I know of no technique, power, or trance that might help her. If I did, I would have tried already. There is nothing I, or any of us, can do," she responded.

"Dangit! She can't die, not now! Not after what we've just gone through!" Mira protested.

"Kuryama is out of our hands," was Visas' soft reply.

* * *

"Why is the Force always so freaking unfair!" Atton swore as he sat listlessly at the _Ebon Hawk_'s flight controls. He banged on the console in front of him to emphasize his words.

Sitting beside him in the copilot's seat was Mira. "Hey, Atton?" she ventured.

"What?"

"I know you and she had this whole 'crush' thing going on, but seriously! She's not dead yet, so can you please cut the anguished boyfriend routine?" she complained.

"Deal with it. We don't have a 'crush' anyway," he growled back. "I'm just saying it doesn't make sense. There's no point to it, no pattern to look for, nothing! Kek, there's isn't so much as a likely cause for this insane business! And I thought we were doing pretty good getting off that hole of a planet but like all crazy Jedi she had to go and make things complicated _again_!" Stress was obvious in his voice.

He still remembered first meeting her. He had been locked in a force cage and she had been wearing less than most self-respecting strippers do on the job. There had been nothing romantic whatsoever about those circumstances, however; the next thing she'd done was punch him square in the face. He remembered that too. It had hurt, a lot.

While he couldn't shake the occasional daydream, Atton didn't delude himself that Kuryama might be in love with him. That didn't keep him from trying, however. But she always seemed more affectionate with Mical than with him.

Dang, he'd almost forgotten. Mical...

_Jab, jab!_ Mira poked him; he'd been nodding off.

Atton shook his head, trying to clear the mists. It had been way too long since he'd gotten any sleep. Not since they landed on Dantooine that second time. Shortly after that they'd dashed off to Telos, fought off hundreds of Sith soldiers and Dark Lords. They hadn't stopped there either. After Telos it was on to Malachor V, and then this. He'd lost track of exactly how many days that made it since he'd grabbed some shuteye.

All of a sudden, Visas' voice crackled over the intercom. "Atton, get in here, now!"

There was something in the Miraluka's voice, urgency perhaps, or maybe even complete and utter what-the-kekness, that made Atton catapult himself from his chair and tear across the ship to get to the infirmary. The door was closed, but Atton instantly knew why Visas had called.

The closed infirmary door was warping inward.

"Kury, are you?..." Atton mumbled in disbelieving amazement.

The hairs on the back of his neck started to rise, he realized he was floating above the floor. Too astonished even to think about why, he looked around, into the main hold. Every single object not strapped down in the hold was floating as he was.

In an instant, the infirmary door gave way and everything fell to the floor.

Visas rushed out, taking Atton's arm as he wearily tried to get to his feet. "She is not dead," the Miraluka announced breathlessly. "She has found the balance..." Her sightless gaze returned to the prone form lying on the cot.

"What balance?" Atton asked, not understanding.

Kuryama was saying something, mumbling more words none of them could understand. And then she said something Atton _did_ understand, but it only puzzled him all the more.

It escaped as a whisper from her throat. "Ex... nihilo!"

"From nothing," Visas intoned in response, her words directed more at herself than at Atton.

"What's going on?" Atton was hopelessly confused. Mira's voice from the cockpit didn't help things."Uh, Atton, there's something weird going on up here!"

Dashing, Atton made it back to the cockpit. He really needed to get some sleep, his eyes were out of focus and he was having immense trouble concentrating. It looked like the controls on the pilot's console were moving by themselves. He rubbed his eyes at the irrational hallucination, but it didn't go away.

"Mira, what is--?"

The red-haired bounty hunter turned in her seat and crossed her arms at the drowsy Atton. "Someone's flying the ship, and it's not me, or you. Just what is Miss Force back there doing?"

Atton tried to make his eyes examine the console before him. The ship's controls were doing something familiar, something he did almost on a daily basis, but his tired mind couldn't figure out what it was.

Oh, he was so darn _tired_! He'd been awake for days, jumping from system to system nearly by the hour.

Hyperspace. The ship was going to jump to hyperspace. That's what it was doing.

And neither he nor Mira had any idea where it would take them.

Slowly, groggily, Atton tried to put words together. "I think we're about to--" With a jolt, the stars stretched and space turned white. The jump into hyperspace was made.

"--do that," he finished. Unable to keep his eyes open any longer, he fell into his chair and slept.

* * *

Orann Dalez never slept, he hadn't since Malachor V. But the loss of that basic human need had been more than justified by what he had gained in return. Unlike the General who, stripped of the Force, returned broken to the Jedi; he had struck out on his own. Malachor V did not tear the Force from him as it had Kuryama Nari, instead it had _given_ him power.

He had been reborn. Darth Oden was his name. His power was to destroy.

Darth Oden had no allegiance, other than to lay waste to everything. He had ravaged Republic worlds, annihilated Sith fleets, slaughtered Mandalorians by the thousands.

Whenever he gave thought to his unrelenting commitment to destruction, the reasons always stood out crystal clear. The galaxy was broken and needed to be rebuilt from the ground up. And thus, all had to be destroyed.

Dalez's powerful figure knelt on the surface of a pock-marked asteroid, black robes, dark skin, and completely black eyes causing him to blend in with the starry sky above him and the shadowed rock on which he sat. Oden's power had accumulated so much that it begged to be released, and he would release it by tearing the asteroid on which he sat from its celestial path and hurling it at a planet of his choosing.

Darth Oden sank his mind into his vast lake of power, reveling in its ecstasy as he brought it to do his bidding. His body felt the massive rock beneath him shift, its course altered. As it always did, the destructive force of his power gave him immense pleasure, for he alone understood that life, true life, only sprung from death.

Suddenly there was a lurch, an interruption of his power. A wave in the Force passed through him, disrupting his work and causing the asteroid he had been guiding to careen out of control. It had a signature attached, one Dalez recognized. It was a summons he could not ignore.

_The Force burn you for this, Revan!_ Dalez cursed. He began to float upward in the zero-gravity environment, having let go of his grip on the asteroid's surface. He let it drift away from him, floating in cold space as he watched the huge rock fly through the darkness until it collided with a neighbor asteroid. Both were crunched to dust.

Deriving what little satisfaction he could at the death of the asteroid, Darth Oden summoned his ship from where it waited. Guided by his own hand through the Force, his ship scooped him out of the vacuum of space. He took his first breath in hours and headed to the cockpit.

As he set the coordinates in his hyperdrive computer, two words echoed again and again in his mind, the shadow of Revan's command.

"_Ex nihilo..._"

* * *

Revan opened his eyes; the message sent, his meditation finished. This day had been long in coming. Through the incredible bloodshed of the Mandalorian War and the crippling conflict of the Jedi Civil War he had been carefully preparing for it, laying plans. During those times he had made terrible mistakes, and the day in which he found himself was not close to what he would have preferred. But come the day had, and Revan would have to face it with everything he possessed and much that he did not.

The time had come for the Sith and the Jedi to unite under his leadership. They had been called from every corner of the galaxy. Their master awaited, ready to lead them into the Third War. The call had gone out first to the strongest of his generals, those of whom legends were made. They would need to lead legions of his soldiers into battle even in the face of insurmountable odds. Some he trusted, others he did not, but all he knew were ready to do their part.

Two of his generals were with him already. Juhani and Bastila, loyal followers from the days of the Jedi Civil War. They had inevitably been changed when he brought them through the Null field with him, bringing them more in tune with some of their darker powers, but the essence of who they were and their loyalty to him had remained as it had always been. He hadn't wanted to let them come with him until he found a way to bring down the Null field, but they had both been most adamant, and in the face of such devotion he could not refuse.

Revan would require as much of himself as he did of those he called. The Mandalorian War and the Jedi Civil War had as much prepared himself for the struggles that lay ahead of him as they had his generals. The war ahead he would have to fight without quarter, utterly without mercy, for compromise would mean doom. To have a chance at victory he needed to be ruthless, without remorse; Darth Revan would need to come out of his shell once more.

He sensed someone approaching, Jalek, one of his lieutenants.

"Lord Revan, the sensors are detecting the fleet's approach. Shall I alert the ghost squadrons?" the man asked.

"No, this time we will let them pass us by. We are not yet ready to strike at them head-on, there is first much to be done. We must wait for the generals, and then we will prepare for the soldiers' arrival," Revan answered.

"Yes, Lord Revan. It shall be as you command." Jalek bowed obediently and left.

Jalek had been a high-ranking officer in the Sith Armada. After the Jedi Civil War ended and Revan finally realized that there had been a plan and a purpose to it all, it was too late and he had been forced to pick at the scraps of his old imperial army for those such as Jalek--men who would follow him simply because they knew and respected him.

But not much was left of the Sith Empire he had once led. They were now scattered all across the galaxy, scheming while the Republic tried desperately to find its feet.

Revan rose and left the meditation chamber where he sat. Restlessly, he walked the passages of his secret stronghold. Concealed within an asteroid with a thin atmosphere, the base was a smuggler's hideout. Revan had found the asteroid drifting on the Outer Rim and dragged it into the Unknown years ago, with the help of a friend exceedingly powerful in the Force and the gravity well of a Sith Interdictor. The Interdictor ship was now hidden in the shadow of the asteroid, a holdout for the day when he would need to abandon his outpost.

In the control room, Revan regarded the deep-space sensor monitors. As Jalek had said, they were registering the approach of the incoming fleet. Even though he had known the power of the enemy for years, Revan was still sickened by the numbers he saw on the display. They were vast beyond imagining.

* * *

Lara's blue _lekku_ tossed about in helpless mirth; Rigel had snorted Gungan beer from his nose. They had just been paid for their last job and were enjoying a few hard-earned concessions, not the least of which was the opportunity to laugh.

She and Rigel were mercenaries, or, as they had named themselves, Talion Hunters. None of what they did was legal in Republic space, but there were lots of people who paid through the roof for their services. What they offered was justice. And in a justice-starved society like the Republic, customers were everywhere. The fruit of the corrupt court systems, murders, rapists, and black-hearts of every trade were running free all over the galaxy, and there was always someone willing to pay a great deal to see them dead for their crimes.

They had only been caught by Republic authorities once, and Rigel had managed to get them out of it. Though, after that they were officially fugitives from the law.

Their ship, a dual-purpose yacht/cargo vessel named _Whitecap_, had belonged to Rigel's father. He and Lara had made extensive, and highly illegal, modifications to nearly every aspect of the ship, making it truly a one-of-a-kind spacecraft. Hidden weapons, secret compartments, illegal engine boosters, military air recyclers; the _Whitecap_ was their pride and joy.

"Rigel, you big idiot! You could choke on that stuff if you keep doing that!" Lara teased her human companion, laughing so hard her ribs hurt. She clapped him on the back as he expelled the potent beer from nostrils, spraying it all over his console.

"Easy Lara, I'm not as drunk as you were back on Illeptica III. I thought you were going to tear your clothes off in front of everybody. That would've been impossible to live down," Rigel retorted, still trying to clear his nasal passages.

Lara's blue skin turned slightly purple at Rigel's pick of embarrassing incident. Force knew they'd had plenty of those, but she wasn't always so stupid about it. Thinking back, it was a good thing Rigel had been there, otherwise she just _might_ have tried to make love to a complete stranger in a crowded cantina--she'd been that wasted.

Even though they weren't siblings, she and Rigel were as close as brother and sister, they knew each other that well. They'd met when she was being sold into slavery by the Exchange. Lara was sixteen, a street rat living on Nar Shaddaa. Rigel was a trouble-making eighteen year-old with his dad's money and a sucker for hot, young Twi'lek girls. He'd also been drunk at the time. He swaggered up to Lara, a prisoner, and asked her out. After that, Lara wasn't quite sure what had happened but she eventually found herself in a pretty expensive restaurant with Rigel.

That was ten years ago. Rigel's dad had since been murdered by Trandoshan smugglers and Lara's parents had been dead since she was eleven. Neither case had seen justice, as hardly anything in the Republic ever did. Clichéd though it was, the two of them decided to start bringing their own brand of justice to the galaxy, hunting the good bounties.

Their most recent job had been to kill a bigoted Rodian gang leader, Ruki Saza, who'd been responsible for blowing up an Ithorian school and killing hundreds of children. The parents and the school board had put up a sizable reward for Saza's death after Republic authorities stonewalled the investigation because of Saza's deep connections.

Since the 'proper' authorities frowned on the two Talion Hunters' actions wherever they struck, Lara and Rigel had quickly made good their escape, taking the time only to restock their booze supplies before jumping system. They picked a random system each time to make themselves harder to track. The routes were chosen by the ship's computer, utilizing a random coordinate program that Rigel had written himself, adding an extra layer of security against being tracked by ruling out well-known randomization protocols.

The console greeted the two with a beeping sound.

"Dang! We were just starting to get going!" Rigel objected, setting his beer down and attempting to wipe some of the excess from the flight console.

Lara subdued her giggling and tried to concentrate on her own side of the cockpit as the ship prepared to drop out of hyperspace.

Every time they reached a new system they had to be alert for traps, from both the Republic and whomever it was that they'd cheesed off lately. Rigel was the pilot for life, leaving Lara with the less glamorous role they dubbed 'special tactics officer'. She had the _Whitecap_'s full array of concealed weaponry, countermeasures, and modded sensors at her disposal in the event of unexpected trouble.

But this time, there was strangely nothing as they exited hyperspace. No inquisitive sensor pings from nearby starports, no intrusive scans from patrol vessels, not even any comm traffic.

"Lara, what system is this?" Rigel asked, peering out the front viewport.

"According to the computer, Devrita," she answered.

Rigel scowled in sudden suspicion. "This is not Devrita."

Lara frowned at her sensor screens. They weren't even picking up a _star system_ in the area! They were off course. Wherever the computer had taken them was not where it was supposed to have nor where it said it had. Devrita was a commerce nerve center, with clients and investors all over the Republic; where they were was a deep nothing.

"We're off course. The computer must have malfunctioned, sent us here. That's the only thing I can think of, because this is definitely _not_ Devrita," Lara stated resolutely.

"No kidding. This isn't anywhere at all," Rigel remarked. "I guess we'll just have to set our next jump manually, bypass the program. Should only take a couple of minutes."

As he got to work on the hyperdrive computer, however, he discovered that their problems were much, much worse. The computer was telling him things that simply couldn't be possible, disturbing things.

"Lara, we're in trouble."

The Twi'lek's head perked in concern. "What kind of trouble?"

"The computer isn't recognizing any of the normal hyperspace coordinates. According to the system, we're outside of the hyperspace route network," he responded.

Lara absorbed it slowly, her shock building. "But that would mean we're--"

"Beyond the Rim. Yeah, that's exactly what it means."

At that moment, the _Whitecap_'s proximity alarms began blaring. Dozens of contacts registered on the sensor readouts; ships exiting hyperspace and headed straight for them. Lara responded instinctively, activating the _Whitecap_'s illegal cloaking field to mask their presence from the approaching ships.

"Ships, dozens of them. I can't tell if they're Republic or not," Lara informed Rigel.

"There's too many to be Republic. It has to be the Kelici Combine or some Exchange transfer fleet. If it's the Combine, we're in trouble. They probably still remember what we did to their drug trade," Rigel remarked dryly.

But yet more ships continued to appear on their sensors. Dozens swelling to hundreds. Hundreds upon hundreds of small, medium, and fairly large vessels were filling the space covered by the _Whitecap_'s jacked-up sensor range. They came and came and came; there was seemingly no end to them.

Lara stared at the screen in disbelief at the numbers she was seeing. There was not a fleet in the galaxy that was the match of this one in size. Their numbers just continued to grow as she watched.

"I don't think that's the Combine," she mumbled, nearly mute in shock.

They had come into view out the front. Lara and Rigel stared in awe and aching dread at the cloud of shimmering vessels as it advanced ever closer, outshining the stars and competing with them for numerousness. There were hundreds and hundreds of them on the sensors, and much more than that beyond the sensors' range.

Nearly everywhere Lara and Rigel had gone over the last few years they had heard whispers of an insidious enemy waiting beyond the Outer Rim. They both knew without a doubt that this was it. This was the enemy dreaded more than the Sith, feared by an entire galaxy.


	2. Where Death Is Most Alive

Orann Dalez gritted his teeth at another intrusive thought of Revan.

The man had no principles of which to speak; first he was a poster-boy for the Jedi Code, then Dark Lord of the Sith, then he returned to the Jedi, before becoming something of both. Revan had adopted teachings and methods from both Orders, perhaps believing himself to be above reproach by either. He didn't realize that one could never be truly neutral unless prepared to destroy everything and begin anew.

Dalez, Darth Oden, was the one true neutral, but Revan had shackled him to his cause.

Even through the dense haze of hyperspace that clouded perceptions of space-time, Dalez could feel the emptiness of the Null field passing by. He was crossing the border of the galaxy into the Unknown Regions, that living but dead border that clawed at him with icy tendrils, a reminder of nothing so much as his moment of rebirth at Malachor V. It was a rushing void, the gnawing essence of his power pouring forth to destroy everything, and yet it was curiously contained. A contradiction of elements, yet all in harmony.

With regret, he felt his ship exit out the other side of the Null field and pass beyond the known galaxy; he was now truly in the Unknown. Oddly enough, it felt like a homecoming, as if he were returning to his roots, to his very origin. Darth Oden had only been beyond the Null field once before - then, as now, it had been at Revan's behest. He did not know why it should resonate so deeply with him, but it did.

His talon-shaped ship dropped out of hyperspace, depositing him in a region of space blacker than the black pools of his eyes. Only the occasional star shined, they were few enough in number for one to count. If one were to look back, however, they would be greeted by the sight of an unimaginably massive wall of stars; the galaxy itself.

This was the true edge of civilization, the nothing from which the end of all life would come. _As Revan had warned..._

Oden cursed at the name. This was not where Revan had bidden him come, yet it was where he had sent him. For what purpose, Oden knew not. He was furious at Revan's evasiveness, unable to fathom why he had been sent to the great emptiness beyond the Rim when his master had called him somewhere else.

A possible answer presented itself when his ship's sensors picked up a group of more than a hundred ships coming out of hyperspace just ahead of him. They made no ripples in the Force, not even the slightest trickle of disturbance to indicate that living beings inhabited them, but Dalez knew without a doubt that it was no mere droid fleet. Nothing of that size or sophistication existed beyond the Rim. In fact, droids had never proven capable of running whole fleets without sentient aid.

No, this was the enemy Revan had warned of from the beginning. The enemy the Jedi Council were so afraid to face that they let the Outer Rim die rather than rise to meet the Mandalorian aggressors. The enemy Malak had wooed by sending forth his legions to crush the feeble Republic.

This was the enemy that would destroy everything and in doing so bring about the end of life itself. And though they might share some of the same goals, Darth Oden was their enemy.

A communications channel opened. Dalez heard the crooning wail of an ancient Sith language. No, he realized, it was baser than the oldest of Sith dialects. It was that from which the archaic language of the Sith had been _derived_. It was a language older than the Republic, older than the Sith, older even than the Jedi Order.

He made no response, not even capable of understanding the message of the imposing fleet before him.

Instead, he reached into his power. It was almost without effort, as if he needed only to remove the stopgap and the full fury of his destructiveness would be unleashed. The two curved lances at the front of his ship, bent like the claws of a predatory animal, began to glow with a deep blue luminescence. Sparks of lightning jumped between the two sharpened points as Darth Oden concentrated his power on the point exactly between them, preparing to release it in a roiling pulse of death. Superheated particles shone with a white-hot glow as they were sucked into the vortex forming at the front of Oden's ship.

In a flash of anger, Darth Oden released the deadly orb from his grasp, casting it ahead into the midst of the enemy fleet. It erupted against the side of the leading ships, disintegrating huge sections of shimmering silver hull in the opening blast. Lethal blue lightning arced from ship to ship, gutting each one from stem to stern as it ran its course.

Dozens of enemy ships drifted as dead hulks before even the second wave of destruction poured from the the center of the storm. A spherical wave of kinetic energy blasted huge chunks of debris in every direction, battering those ships still intact. Following close on its heels was a withering outpour of blazing plasma, radiating outward to envelop the entire fleet.

Every ship burned with a horrible blue fire, none escaped Darth Oden's wrath.

As Dalez sat staring at the utter devastation, deriving immense pleasure from the act of wanton destruction, the hidden second part of Revan's message was activated in his mind. Finally he knew where his elusive master awaited him.

His irritation at being jerked around like a kath hound on a chain by Revan, however, was blunted by the satisfaction of seeing and feeling the death of such a large fleet.

Dalez entered new coordinates into his hyperspace computer and left the vast emptiness to find his master.

* * *

"Hey, wake up, sleepyhead!"

Someone was shaking him. He didn't want to wake up, why couldn't they leave him alone? He was so tired, he just wanted to sleep...

"Atton! Wake up!"

Unable to escape Mira's persistent badgering to wake up, Atton pried open his eyes. He was slumped in the pilot's seat, the chair forcibly leaned back, and Mira's eyes glaring three inches from his face, upside-down.

"Okay, I'm awake," he mumbled.

"About time, you've been sitting there snoring for the past three hours," Mira commented.

"Have I really? That's a new record for the past two months, I don't think I've gotten that much sleep at once since Dantooine," Atton responded, shaking residual drowsiness from his head. "Has anything happened?" He asked.

Then he remembered. Kuryama was dying.

Why the kek was he getting so broke up over this?

Fortunately, Mira avoided that subject. "Well, we're still in hyperspace if that's what you're asking. And no, I have no idea where we're going if that was going to be your next question," she elaborated.

"What were the coor--"

"I already checked, Atton. The hyperspace coordinates aren't anything the computer recognizes as part of the trade route network, which means its either a pirate line or a completely unexplored route. Either way, we're totally whacked." Mira scowled. "So how does she do it, anyway?" She suddenly asked in irritation.

"What?"

"How did Kuryama take control of the ship like that? According to Visas she's dying, but she can fly a freighter with nothing but the Force, and that while in an unconscious and highly delirious state? I'm not an expert on the Force or anything, but that seems more than a little out-there if you know what I mean."

Atton's fuzzy thoughts tried valiantly to coalesce, drive away the sleepiness. One thought stood out. "Just before this whole hyperspace weirdness started, Visas said something about Kuryama finding a 'balance'. I didn't understand it then and I don't now, but it was probably important and wasted on my tired brain and low tolerance for Jedi-speak."

Mira sighed in agreement. "Well, we might as well face it; we've been thrown in with two of the weirdest Jedi out there. I think it's about time we started getting used to being confused whenever we can't point a blaster at something to solve our problems. How I miss those days."

* * *

There had been no change in Kuryama's condition since they entered hyperspace. Still she hovered on the crest of death, invisible to the Force but able to control it unconsciously. Her gray Jedi robes were soaked in sweat from her feverish perspiration, the cot ruffled by her involuntary convulsions. All around her things floated in midair; her lightsabre, medical supplies, stray refuse... anything close was unavoidably touched by her power.

Visas sat beside her, watching the person she knew was there but could not see. She was full of mixed feelings, each one confusing and distracting her. The only thing she knew for certain was she desperately did not want Kuryama to die. She had been shown life but was unprepared for it. Visas needed a master to show her the way as she always had; whether she'd been a slave to that master or an apprentice.

Since the moment she first felt Kuryama's echo, Visas had longed for her to be her master. Ever since finding her, she had discovered more about life, the Force, and herself than ever before. But it was not enough, it never was.

As she sat, wrestling with difficult emotions, she felt something else wash over her. It was a tremor in the Force itself, sourceless and all-encompassing. It resonated in her soul like the very hand of Lord Nihilus himself reaching down to devour her world as it had many years ago, leaving her the sole survivor. She trembled at its touch, at the memories it evoked; things she wished never again to relive. Visas realized it was exactly like what she saw when she looked at Kuryama; it was the utter absence of the Force, and yet that very absence made it all the more powerful. It was the power of the Force without the Force itself, a deadly paradox with which Visas was intimately familiar; for that had also described perfectly the power of Lord Nihilus, the one who had spared her life and possessed it in return.

The wave quickly passed. Visas shuddered.

And then she saw Kuryama.

She _saw_ her. Not simply the aura of power that surrounded her, but the person behind the power. She sensed life returning to her master's nearly dead form, her chest rose and fell as she began to take deep, full breaths once more.

Kuryama opened her eyes for the first time since closing them shortly after Malachor.

Overcome with joy, Visas knelt by Kuryama's cot and grasped her hand thankfully.

"Master! You are alive!" She exclaimed.

Kuryama smiled up at the Miraluka, more with her gray eyes than her parched mouth. "Help me up," she whispered. Visas immediately took her arm over her shoulder and lifted her onto her feet.

"Master, you should rest," Visas urged.

"No, I need to wake up, get up and about," Kuryama clarified. "I also need water."

With Visas' help, she left the infirmary and made for the cockpit. Atton was thunderstruck to see her awake, alive.

"Kury'! You're not dead!" was all he could say for a moment.

Mira was more reserved. "Excellent waking up, K'," she commented approvingly.

"Where are the others?" Kuryama asked.

At her question, all three faces darkened. Mira voiced the truth. "Mical and Bao-Dur died protecting the mass shadow generator from Goto. I'm sorry."

Kuryama would have expected anguish, sorrow, grief, or at least _something_, but she felt nothing. Nothing but the remorse of a commander who sent her soldiers off to die noble deaths for a noble cause. She had truly been their General, and they her soldiers, to the end.

"Their brave deaths saved countless billions. I'm sure they would have wanted it that way," she declared, not voicing the pain she knew would surely come.

Silent heads nodded.

The hyperspace computer started beeping, interrupting the short remembrance, and the ship dropped out of hyperspace a moment later.

"Bringing us back to our other problems," Atton reminded them.

"Yeah, just where did you take us, Miss Force?" Mira asked.

"Beyond the edge of the galaxy. We've passed into the Unknown Regions," Kuryama answered.

"What in the heck for?" Atton exploded.

"Revan has called us. He is here, waiting for us to come to him."

"Please tell me we don't have to fight him too!" He complained.

"Revan is not our enemy. He has to lead us in the next war against the true threat. It's why were out here, in the condemned realms of open space. This is where the real enemy lies."

"Okay, that's fine. But I don't see anything out here, just a whole bunch of nothing. So where are we supposed to find Revan, anyway?"

That was a good question, but she thought she knew the answer. The _Hawk_'s sensors were picking up a cluster of asteroids in the immediate vicinity. Kuryama's Force senses examined the asteroids. There was one a great deal larger than any of the others, it seemed to be largely stationary, drifting only minimally in relation to its neighbors. It was impossible not to notice how out of place it was.

"Turn the ship about, head for those asteroids. Revan is there, I can feel it."

Atton obliged, and flew the ship in close to the asteroids where Kuryama directed him. The sensors detected a minimal atmosphere on the largest one, the one that had roused her Force sense. All of a sudden, an audio signal played over the comm channel.

"Welcome, General Nari. I'm glad you could make it." It was a man's voice.

"Hello, Revan," Kuryama answered.

"Land on the far side, in the shadow; you'll see where. We have a lot to discuss and much to plan."

* * *

Lara and Rigel sat paralyzed by the size of the fleet headed for them. It was larger by many times than the hugest armadas the Sith had ever thrown at the Republic; hundreds upon hundreds of ships, thousands even.

The ships themselves bore no resemblance whatsoever to the warships born of the ancient Star Forge. Instead of being wedge-shaped they were flat and broad, with smooth lines all along the hull. They were sectioned, with outlying wing structures that curved away from the main body like immense blades. Their front sections terminated with a similar sweeping, blade-like curve at the bow. Every one of them glittered with a pristine silver shine in the light of the sparse stars.

Whatever type of sub-hyperspace engines they possessed were capable of incredible speed and strength, for the entire fleet was rapidly closing in on the _Whitecap_.

"Rigel," Lara said with mounting urgency, "get us turned around."

"We can't outrun that!" Rigel protested, gesturing at the massive fleet.

"Maybe we can't. But if we pass through that fleet heading the opposite direction, they are _going_ to detect us if only just from the heat of our exhaust and they'll know instantly that we don't belong. If they pass us and we're going in the same direction, they might disregard any anomalous readings as coming from a neighbor ship," Lara put forth.

Rigel raised his eyebrow in obvious doubt.

"Look, I know it probably won't work anyway. But the other alternative, as opposed to 'probably', is 'definitely'. We need to take the chance, no matter how small," she pressed. "And you'd better do it fast, here they come!"

Cursing Lara's logic, Rigel swung the _Whitecap_ about and gunned the engines as the alien fleet started to overtake them. However, the moment the ship was facing away from the alien ships, a new sight greeted them more stunning than that of the virtually innumerable fleet now behind them. They saw the wall of stars that was the galaxy.

Rigel was at a loss for words. "Lara... is that...?"

His Twi'lek companion's face was nearly white with shock. She gulped and nodded. "We're far beyond the Rim. That's why the hyperdrive isn't working, there are no reference points--"

She was cut off by a sudden lurch of the ship and blaring proximity alarms. The alien ships were whizzing by only a few dozen meters from the _Whitecap's_ cloaked hull, triggering automatic evasion protocols in the ship's guidance computer. Rigel frantically wrestled with the controls to keep from crashing into another passing ship.

"Have they spotted us?" He worriedly asked.

"How should I know?" Lara responded in vexation.

"Well I just--oh, good Force, look at that!" As if they hadn't already seen plenty of disturbing sights, the one coming into view was among the most frightening. And the alien fleet appeared to be headed straight for it.

It was a planet, orbiting no star, glowing with an inner blue light.

The sight was unnatural, frightening even, for such a thing should not exist, _couldn't_ exist. Planets needed stars, they didn't just float out in space. It was not a gas giant, continents and oceans visible even at the distance, but it radiated the specter-like deep blue nonetheless.

A tortured metallic groan sounded throughout the _Whitecap_, warranting yet more concern.

"What in the kekking whacked Force is going on!" Rigel cursed vigorously. "The controls aren't responding!"

Lara was at a loss.

She and Rigel could do nothing more than sit in their seats as they broke away from the main fleet along with a contingent of almost thirty alien ships. They were caught in a magnetic bonding field, Lara realized, and still undetected. But that was slim protection. They were at the beck and call of the rest of the bonded group, over two dozen ships obeying only one command set, piloted as a single entity. They were making to land on the ghostly blue planet.

Lara and Rigel held their breath as they entered the atmosphere, knowing that the heat of reentry would light them up like a solar flare, cloak or no cloak. Rigel grimly thought that the long tongue of orange flame would look beautiful against the backdrop of the blue-saturated atmosphere, but at the same time it would be a beacon alerting the alien ships of the intruder in their midst.

"KEK!" Lara swore as an alarm went off on her console, signaling that they were being probed.

They'd been spotted.

_Whitecap_ shook as the bonding field was disengaged. The individual ships around them moved on their own, targeting the phantom streak of orange in the sky. Rigel heard the ECM alarms go off as well as Lara's profanity and spun the _Whitecap_ into a reflexive barrel-roll to break the enemy's weapons lock. Both their stomachs lurched as they plunged downward to the glowing surface of the planet below, dozens of ships following in their fiery wake.

"Get me shields, Lara!" Rigel shouted.

"I'll have to disengage the cloak!" She responded.

"Then disengage the whacked cloak! Get me shields or we drown in kek!" He retorted, his voice a snarl of desperation.

Lara quickly punched a few buttons and got the _Whitecap's_ deflector shields up and running. And not a moment too soon. The ship was jostled about by a direct hit to the stern; a split second earlier and it would have gutted their engines. Sizzling black bolts of foreign energy whizzed past them as misses, but the one hit had reduced localized shields by a full twenty percent.

Rigel threw the _Whitecap_ into a series of extreme maneuvers to evade the weapons fire, cursing continually as the ships behind him adjusted their aim with staggering precision, buffeting the cargo yacht with their blistering firepower.

It was surreal, as if it were impossible for them to miss to weaving fugitive ship that was trying its hardest to escape them.

Land was coming up fast. There was absolutely nothing living on the surface, it was a barren flat of smooth rock, broken in places by huge cracks from which the phantasmal blue beams shot forth. The only notable landmark in sight was what appeared to be a massive shrine of quarried stone fashioned in the shape of a six-pointed starburst with a converging vertex. The blue light was especially strong around the structure.

Rigel narrowly avoided crashing head-on with the giant temple as _Whitecap_ screamed over the surface, dodging the alien ships' deadly weapons with only limited success. But the sudden increase in the intensity of the ambient light distracted him for a critical second, and in that second a bolt from the enemy's cannons ripped through the _Whitecap's_ failing shields.

A host of alarms went off as Lara informed him of the damage. "That last shot overloaded the buffer conduit! Structural damage and a complete electronics whack-up!"

"You don't say!" Rigel replied, feeling the ship losing power, the nose drooping below the horizon. "I've lost all acceleration, we're going down! Lara, set off the smoke grenades in the tail section!" He ordered.

Lara reached up and pulled a series of switches on a panel on the ceiling, activating the smoke grenades and sending up a decoy smoke trail, trying to make their enemy think they were more damaged than they really were. There was only a slight chance the feint would work, the alien ships might not be fooled and swoop in for a killing blow. But as everything they'd done up to this point, it at least gave them a chance.

The glide-in was much too sudden. Lara and Rigel were thrown violently forward in their seats at the moment of impact, the deafening roar of _Whitecap's_ durasteel hull scraping against the rock surface, trying to gain purchase with which to slow itself down, drowned out the chorus of alarms that went off signaling failure in every major system. It seemed an eternity before they finally ground to a halt.

Spitting out a mouthful of blood and a broken tooth, Rigel angrily cut the power to the alarms, sick of listening to their insistent wailing.

His chair was bent forward, the base broken in the trauma of the crash, but aside from a hard knock on the jaw he was pretty much alright. Squirming out of the seat, he dragged himself over to Lara. She was unconscious, bleeding from a superficial cut on her forehead.

Through the front view-port, Rigel could see the thirty-or-so alien ships breaking off. He heaved a giant sigh of relief; they'd fallen for the smoke, believing them to have died in the crash.

He unbuckled Lara from her seat and eased her onto the floor, trying to see if she had sustained any serious external injuries. Internal injuries were a whole different matter, but he couldn't deal with them at the moment. Satisfied that Lara was not in life-threatening danger, Rigel made his way to the cargo ramp, grabbing a respirator mask along the way, before cursing his shortsightedness - the cargo ramp was sealed shut against the rocky ground. Not to be denied, however, he muscled open a droid access hatch on the ceiling and crawled out of the ship.

Scrambling to the rear section, Rigel inspected the damage to the engines. The armor plating had taken much of the hit. But as Lara had said, the buffer conduit was completely fried, meaning they had absolutely no control over the engines. _Whitecap_ wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.

A sudden sound in the air caught Rigel's attention. He muttered an expletive to himself as he saw what appeared to be a dropship swoop in and land right next to his ship. It had the same smooth, blade-like design as did the rest of the alien ships they'd encountered. Hatches on the side opened up, revealing biped humanoid figures wearing non-reflective white armor. On their heads, however, they wore a shrouds of black cloth and ivory masks.

The intruders spotted him immediately as they poured from the dropship. One that looked to be the leader - streaks of red adorned his mask - raised his vaguely humanoid hand and the twenty behind him activated weapons that were a hideous imitation of the lightsabre. They each had a black blade of energy which, instead of glowing, sucked the light from the air around them. They began moving menacingly towards the crippled _Whitecap_.

Rigel drew his blaster, set the sights on the commander figure, and pulled the trigger.

* * *

The asteroid base was almost completely deserted. Since landing, Kuryama and the others had come across only four people on their way to Revan's chamber. All four of them had been former Sith officers. Kuryama was not surprised that Revan still had followers from the shattered Sith Empire and she supposed that they could use all the help they could get, considering what little she did know of the threat they faced.

Visas walked in front of her, her lightsabre out but not ignited, ready to defend her master in an instant at the first sign of trouble. Her posture and her black and red robes made her an imposing presence. Kuryama followed her self-appointed guardian, wearing her gray as always. Atton and Mira brought up the rear, each trying not to acknowledge the other while not going to the extent of ignoring each other; a fragile balance that only those two possessed the skills to maintain.

Reaching Revan's chamber, Kuryama threw the doors open and strode inside.

There was a huge window at the end, looking out on the sparse star field of the Unknown Regions. Facing the blackness of space was a high-backed chair which spun to face them, revealing the figure of Revan himself.

He was much older than when Kuryama had seen him last, some fifteen years older, but time had only made him harder. His same black beard was sharper, his brow sterner, his eyes more intense. He was wearing the robes of a Sith, but it really made no difference; Revan was a disciple of both Orders and neither. He had truly chosen his own path.

"General Nari, so good to see you again," he greeted her. "How many years has it been?"

Instead of answering, Kuryama instantly brought her lightsabre to hand and ignited its viridian blade, holding the Jedi at its point.

"Enough of your games, Revan!" She hissed. "You can't fully understand just what I've been through to come here. It's time for you to explain the why of it all. Starting with why you abandoned the Republic when we needed you most!" Righteous rage and indignation were in her voice.

Revan simply sat there staring calmly at her while she held him at sabre-point.

"Put the weapon down, General," he said in a placating tone. "I will tell you what I know."

Cautiously, Kuryama lowered her lightsabre and deactivated it. But she sensed Visas move closer, felt her tense in readiness to fight if need be.

Revan spread his hands out and began speaking.

"I suppose it would be best if I started at the beginning. The beginning in this case would be the Infinite Empire, ruled by the Rakatans many thousands of years before the Republic, tens of thousands. They ruled through the Force in physical might. They created the Star Forge to join these two aspects of their power into a machine that assured them total dominance over the entire galaxy. It was this way for several thousand years. During those thousands of years, the slave races beneath them were in constant turmoil. Many of the primary slave worlds were located on the fringes of what we now call the Outer Rim. It was here that a series of brutal uprisings erupted. All were eventually extinguished, but a few required the complete annihilation of entire planets before the fires of rebellion died.

"It was in quelling those uprisings that the Rakatans made their first mistake. The deaths of nearly a dozen planets, all at practically the same time and in such close proximity to each other, created an echo in the Force more terrible than that of Malachor by several thousand times. It wiped an entire region of space clean of all life, creating a literal hole in the Force. But the contamination did not stop, nor did the slave revolutionaries. This disaster was repeated many times over, and between the frequency with which it occurred and the tendency for the death field to spread, soon what we know as the Outer Rim was completely bisected by this ring of death. Passing through this field was impossible for Force Sensitives to survive, at least with their connection to the Force intact. And as Malachor proved, not many Sensitives can live without the Force. Cut off from the rest of the galaxy by this ring of dead planets, everything facing deep space eventually became dead to the Force.

"So slaves and Rakatans alike were trapped between the emptiness of deep space and the death of what has come to be called the Null field. Gradually, all traces of the Force were eradicated from that splintered group of society and total anarchy broke out. A few thousand years later, the slaves and Rakatans had been so interbred that they resembled a single conglomerate species, one so devoid of the Force that in its presence the Force died. Not being creatures of the Force, they were able to pass through the Null field without hindrance or the threat of death. When they did, and reentered a galaxy bathed in the Force, it turned their undying hatred for their Rakatan masters of old into a hatred of all livings things touched by the Force.

"This Forceless race, whom I have come to know as the Nihil, sowed the seeds for the downfall of the Infinite Empire. It was because of them that the Rakatans began to lose their Force sensitivity and thus their entire empire slipped away from their hands. Many millenia of chaos followed and the Nihil crept back behind the Null field satisfied at the galaxy's ruin."

Atton coughed loudly. "Well thanks for the history lesson, but I'm not seeing where this is relevant."

Revan scowled darkly. "This information was bought at the price of the Mandalorian War. It is vitally important to understand what we now face, Jaq."

Atton's face darkened. "Don't call me that," he growled in anger.

"Then don't interrupt me," Revan responded. "Continuing, it was during the Mandalorian War that Malak and I began to come across signs of the Rakatan's downfall, and those truly responsible. We realized that the Mandalorians were being used as a vanguard for the greater threat that awaited. Once we came to this conclusion, we started our search for the one thing that might help even the odds."  
"The Star Forge," Kuryama conjectured.

"Correct."

"It didn't help the Rakatans, why should it have been any help to us?"

"The Rakatans didn't even know the enemy existed, and furthermore, the Nihil were content to undermine the Infinite Empire from within and ensure its fall to utter anarchy. The Mandalorian War has shown us that their appetite for death - our deaths - no longer knows no such bounds. They have had many millenia in which to build their forces, and they have assembled a fleet that dwarfs by more than a hundred times the largest armadas ever gathered. A few hundred years ago the Nihil began sending agents across the Null field to stir up the old Sith Empire, preparing the galaxy for their return so as to ensure that any and all resistance would be desperately futile. The Mandalorians' attack signaled the new beginning of their war against the Force. By the time that war ended, the Republic was doomed and the Star Forge was becoming what looked like our last hope."

"But then you and Malak continued where the Mandalorians left off," Kuryama accused.

"You are incorrect. Malak did, I did not. Surely a general of your stature could see the purpose and the strategy behind my campaign. Weakening the Republic was not my goal, though it was unavoidable in the process. My goal was to bring the galaxy under an order capable of protecting against the Nihil's impending invasion. It was Malak who lost sight of our true purpose and began to hunger for much the same things as the Nihil did; the utter destruction of peace and freedom. The Jedi Civil War was his war, Malak's; he fought to destroy, I to unite."

Mira interrupted. "So, if everything you've said is true, that you were never really a Dark Lord and everything you ever did was ultimately to help, then why did you turn around and blow up the Star Forge if it was the only means of defending the galaxy?"

Revan's demeanor changed entirely at her question. His eyes became colder and deader than stone as he answered. "Because I died. On the bridge of my flagship when Malak decided the time was right to betray me and the foolish Jedi had seen fit to assassinate me, I was killed. But the Jedi could not end their ignorant meddling there, so they revived me, stripped my memories from me and gave me a new identity so they could watch me. They wanted me to lead them to the Star Forge and I played right into their hands, being none the wiser. Even though my memories began eventually to come back to me, by the time I realized the truth it was already too late.

"Destroying the Star Forge was the worst mistake we could possibly have made. The Senate and the Council were so afraid of Malak and the Sith, afraid of strength greater than their own, that they demanded the Star Forge destroyed. If not for their meddling I could have taken the seat of Sith power and been able to mount a defense against the Nihil with the Sith Empire at my disposal. By destroying the Star Forge, the Republic and the Jedi undid the work of two bloody conflicts in one swoop and left the galaxy once again defenseless and worse off than ever before.

"This is why I had to leave. Between the Mandalorian War and the Jedi Civil War, the Republic has proven itself incapable of warding against the storm descending on the galaxy, and the Jedi ensured the Sith Empire's impotence by destroying the one thing capable of defending us. The Republic cannot be saved, it is doomed."

The pale green blade of Kuryama's lightsabre sang out once more, to be held at Revan's face. "So you _have_ deserted us, in every sense! You have left the galaxy to a fate worse than death! You are a traitor in too many ways to name!" Her voice was a mass of contradictions, boiling rage and deadly calm coexisting without struggle.

"I have not deserted anyone, Kuryama. I have created the last chance any of us are ever going to have to survive. As surely as the Republic will fall to the might of the Nihil, we must lead the Sith and the Jedi side by side to strike back into the heart of the enemy. We cannot defeat them through strength of arms, but we can deal them a blow that will leave them fighting amongst themselves for thousands of years to come."

Reason guiding her actions, Kuryama lowered her sabre. "I'm listening."

And then Revan smiled. It was one of his odd smiles that inspired while at the same time caused one to cringe in fear. And his explanation was nearly enough to bring Kuryama to her knees in shock.

"We must ignite the Force within them once more."


	3. Inside the Particle Storm

The Acolyte trembled nervously as he approached the Sanctuary. Beyond its obsidian doors was the inner sanctum of Nihil's most holy of leaders, Sacred Saint Akar Xiylehn. The Holy One had the final say in every single aspect of Nihil society; he presided over their unified religion, shaped their economy, oversaw the government, and commanded the unparalleled might of their army. The Sacred Saint was deity to the Nihil, considered by billions to be the most powerful individual in the universe.

Ashamed of his inadequacy, the Acolyte was unsure why he had been chosen to bring the news to the Holy One, for surely there was someone of greater status more worthy to come so close to their blessed leader. But he had never once questioned his orders, and to do less than his absolute best was to invite quick execution. The commands of one's superior were never to be second-guessed.

He stood before the imposing black gates of the Sanctuary, facing the Sacred Saint's guard of honor, a contingent of no less than fifty Nihil commandos in full ceremonial armor.. The Acolyte fingered his simple mask unconsciously as he held out a holocron containing the information he was to pass to the Holy One as verification to the guards. Wordlessly, the guards examined the evidences presented and allowed him through.

The Acolyte approached the door and laid his hands on the smooth bone knobs, pushing open the black gate.

The Sanctuary was a monument to ancient Nihil history, preserved through thousands and thousands of years in the exquisite beauty of the stone architecture. To a learned eye, the sharp sweep of the giant chamber's walls and jutting peaks of parabolic obelisks set in archaic patterns on the vast floor spoke of the Nihil's tumultuous genesis and glorious golden age. They were also meant to remind all visitors of the Nihil's eternal enemy and its never-ending will to extinguish their freedom and way of life.

Sacred Saint Akar knelt in the center of the chamber where an overlap between two rings of the towering spires formed a symbolic sculpture representing the mighty power of the Nihil people channeled to him as their supreme leader. He was aware of the Acolyte before even he had laid his hands on the doors. Unlike the Acolyte, who was dressed in a drab brown tunic and mask of the same color as befitted his lowly status, he wore a magnificent robe of blue and black and a polished white mask with intricate patterns carved on its bone-like surface.

"_Approach, faithful one,_" he bade the Acolyte, speaking in the ancestral language of the Nihil.

Haltingly, the Acolyte came forward and stood outside the ring of spires, not daring to enter. He held the holocron in his hands, presenting it to the Holy One. "_There is news from the Inquisitors in the Void sectors. A small assemblage of the Inquisition's fleet was destroyed by a single foreign ship. It was said to harness powers equal to those of the Rayaj, eradicating an hundred and twenty-six ships of the Inquisition._"

A diagram of the unidentified ship was displayed by the holocron.

"_The Rayaj are unshakably loyal to me and our divine cause, for to defect is to die. This was the work of a heathen spawned from within the Field, an abomination born of the unholy Force who has discovered the power of the Rayaj. He will be found and sacrificed, as must all who follow the Force,_" Akar pronounced.

The Acolyte went on, reporting the rest of his message. "_Yes, my lord. Also, most encouragingly, the Grand Fleet of Unification reports that it is ready for your word to begin the incursion through the Field, full forces have been gathered and await the beginning of the campaign._"

Beneath his mask, a smile came to the face of Akar Xiylehn. Even knowing all along that one could never return from the Sanctuary of the Sacred Saint the Acolyte had performed his duties admirably.

Stepping out of the two rings, Akar placed his hand on the Acolyte's shoulder and inhaled deeply. The Acolyte had no chance even to scream as his body was dissolved into dust and sucked into the empty black maw in the Sacred Saint's mask. The brown robes and simple mask fell to the floor, the Acolyte within erased from existence.

Akar felt not so much as a twinge of regret or remorse at having so thoughtlessly wiped a life away. It was expected - demanded - of all Acolytes that they be willing to be sacrificed, as had been laid down through the ages by their revered traditions.

He held out a hand and the holocron floated from the folds of the empty robe where it had fallen. He plucked it out of the air, studying its carved surface. It contained the combined knowledge of thousands of Nihil soldiers who had witnessed the foreign ship wreak their own destruction, Akar would study it hard and well so as to understand this enigmatic aggressor. It would not do to have such complications on the eve of the Nihil's new Crusade, when they would finally extinguish the Force and bring peace, peace as the galaxy had not ever known.

The divine cause of the Nihil could not be stopped--would not be stopped. They had spent close to the last two hundred years ensuring that this time, nothing would remain in their wake.

* * *

Revan's plan was unbelievable; ignite the Force in a race dead to the Force for millenia.

"What even makes you think such a thing can be done?" Kuryama asked, sheer astonishment plain in her voice, the shock too much to hide.

Revan's smiled widened. "You yourself are proof that it is possible."

Kuryama knew exactly what Revan was talking about –the terrible agony of the Force ripping from her, the searing pain that went beyond anything a mere physical shell could hold.

And then . . . the emptiness. An aching void always inside her that begged to be filled, willing to devour anything if only it would make the pain stop.

She stepped back, needing to give herself distance from the unwelcome memories. She barely noticed Visas stepping in front of her, as if she could shield Kurymama from Revan's words and the memories they provoked.

"Master, are you alright?" she asked, her sightless eyes turned towards Revan.

Kuryama forced herself to get it together. She couldn't fall apart. She didn't have time for the luxury of emotions now. "Yes,Visas, I am fine. Thank you."

Her eyes still on Revan, Kuryama put away her lightsabre. "So I was reunited with the Force, but the means remains a mystery. We could search and study for the next thousand years and not ever discover how it was possible with me."

"A thousand years of study are not necessary, Kuryama," Revan responded, the trace of smugness in his voice beginning to grate on her. "The Miraluka standing behind you is the key. I cannot explain why she is so important, because I do not know myself. I only know that in some shape or form, she is the key to resurrecting the Force. That is all I know and all there is to it."

Atton spoke up. "Revan, that was the most bewildering story I've ever heard. And I don't think I understood a word of it. If that's your plan, how do you plan to go about your plan? And more importantly, where in this whole whacked-up scheme do we fit in? 'Cause I'm not seeing it."

"You are going to help destroy the Null field so the rest of the Sith and Jedi will be able to follow us here, to where they must be," Revan answered simply, ignoring Atton's dripping sarcasm.

"Wow, you make that sound so easy. So how do we destroy something that doesn't even really exist?"

"If you would care to keep your tongue in check I will explain."

Ignoring Atton's muttered, "That'd be nice", Revan continued.

"The Null field is not perfect, it never has been. As can be expected of anything, it has its defects, and over time those defects have grown. As time wore on, the Null field began to allow tiny slivers of Force energy through instead of immediately snuffing it out. Of course, it took hundreds of years - possibly more than a millennia, and by that time the Nihil were already quite a powerful society. So they created the Relay worlds; planets that orbit no star but instead travel the entire circumference of the galaxy, skimming the surface of the Null field. The Relay worlds capture and absorb those small traces of the Force that manage to trickle through the field, counteracting the forces of entropy, in order that it might remain as dead as it was at the very beginning."

Kuryama felt something hollow twist in the pit of her stomach as she began to grasp Revan's plan.

"I have been to some of these planets, and they are within a few hundred years of bursting from the amount of Force energy they have collected over the millenia. Should such a thing happen, then that concentration of the Force would rush back into the Null field and overcome its deadening effect; it would become just another part of the galaxy."

"If I understand you correctly," Visasa said slowly. "Then what you suggest--"

Revan flashed a charming smile that was wasted on Visas. "We need only destroy one. The imbalance would trigger a cascade effect across the rest of the Relay network."

"_Just how the kek do you destroy a planet?_" Mira and Atton, the two non-Jedi, yelled in perfect - but completely unintended - harmony.

Another frightening smile played over Revan's face. "You won't have to. You will protect the man who will."

"Great, who's that?" Atton wearily asked.

"A former Jedi. One with whom I believe General Nari is familiar."

Kuryama heard the heavy note of implication in Revan's voice, sensed a misdirection. She whirled around to face the doorway. There stood a broad-shouldered man in the black robes of a Sith, his head shaved and eyes darker than his dark skin.

She knew this man, but it could not possibly be him, he had died years ago at Malachor V with all the rest of those Jedi, save her. But there he was, standing in plain sight, in complete contradiction to what she knew to be true.

"Dalez?" she whispered, almost to herself. "You're alive?"

He couldn't possibly be real. She'd seen him go down, he'd been the first to fall under the Mandalorian guns. His bleeding body had stained the gray mud red as he sank in the muck, his body never recovered.

Kuryama forced herself to deal with this as a General.

"You died at Malachor V," she said flatly, as if she were reading statistics. "How is it that you stand here now?"

"The Jedi Orann Dalez died. But he was reborn Darth Oden. I am the Lord of Destruction." The deep voice substantiated the illusion. It was him.

Kuryama kept poking. "And your allegiance now lies with the Sith?" she asked.

She was beyond bitterness. The galaxy had gone to ruin, and with it had dragged down everyone she'd ever known. Either they turned or they died.

"My allegiance is to seeing order spring finally from the ashes of this ruined galaxy," Dalez informed her impassively. "But I will not suffer an enemy to end all life, to end the Force itself. I will fight alongside you against the Nihil as I once did against the Mandalorians."

"If this matter is settled," Revan interrupted, "we have planning to do."

* * *

Rigel's first shots went well wide of the target, smattering the ground and sending sharp stone chips flying everywhere. His target, a commander-looking figure with a more elaborate mask than his counterparts, dodged out of his line of fire. As Rigel tracked him with his blaster he managed to strike hits on several of the other soldiers. His illegally modified blaster's shots cracked through their white armor and hit flesh. Blood splattered, bodies fell dead to the flat ground.

Wailing howls of rage sounded from the enemy soldiers, causing Rigel to think twice about congratulating himself.

He let loose with another volley, but this time they were prepared for it. Wielding their black energy blades as efficiently as any Jedi or Sith would a lightsabre, they deftly deflected his blaster bolts straight back at him. Instead of humming as lightsabres did, the alien weapons hissed and crackled as they were swung, blocking his shots at every turn.

Rigel ducked behind an engine housing to avoid being hit by his own blaster fire and rapidly rethought his strategy. Trouble was, he had no strategy. He did however, have a grenade.

With a prayer that the enemies below would be as unprepared for a plasma grenade as they had been at first against his blaster, Rigel chucked the explosive into the middle of the group and silently counted down from three. Right on cue, the grenade detonated in a searing orange explosion.

White-armored soldiers flew in every direction from the blast radius, some charred corpses, some still very much alive. Rigel shot at them as they landed on the stone ground, picking off a few who were slow to bring their energy swords to bear.

There were still plenty of enemies left, and he didn't have another grenade, so he started shooting again.

It was hopeless, and Rigel knew it. They all seemed to be as good as Jedi and he was just one man with a blaster and a bottle of booze he hadn't finished yet. Even if he'd been a Jedi he couldn't possibly have stopped them all. He was going to die on a creepy planet that didn't orbit a star, out beyond the galaxy itself, killed by an enemy no one had ever seen before.

As cool a death as that sounded like, Rigel didn't want it. Too scary.

Besides, if he had to die, he figured Lara should at least be there with him.

While thinking his dismal thoughts, Rigel heard a mechanical whirring noise and saw a hidden hatch open up a few feet away from him. A blaster cannon rose from the compartment and targeted the advancing white-armored soldiers. He heard an electronic whine and immediately ducked back behind the engine housing and covered his ears.

Sizzling green bolts erupted from the blaster cannon, impacting the ground in and around the enemies with the force of mortars. It took only a few shots to eradicate the enemy soldiers. The cannon then turned its attention to the alien dropship. Unable to stand up to the cannon's concentrated fire, the dropship was gutted and burst into flames within seconds.

Rigel stared in disbelief at the burnt bodies and wreckage of the dropship for a moment before coming to an obvious conclusion.

Quickly, he climbed back through the small droid access hatch and wriggled his way into the ship. He found Lara right where he thought he would, leaning over the weapons panel on her console. She flipped a switch and turned to face Rigel as he heard the blaster cannon retract into its hidden compartment overhead, a very smug smile on her face.

"You're welcome," she remarked.

"Thanks, but I had everything under control," Rigel retorted.

Lara's self-satisfied smirk grew wider. "Yeah. About as under control as that time on Naboo when I had to rescue you from those drug dealers who imprisoned you in that submerged cage with a pair of prostitutes."

Rigel stiffened. "Hey! Come on, that was different! They were so stoned I might have gotten somewhere! They did have the codes, you know!" he protested.

"Never mind. How do things look back there?" Lara enquired.

"Not good. You were right, the buffer conduit is completely fried. We're going to have to jury-rig something if we want to get this bird off the ground again. Thanks for the assistance, by the way."

"No problem."

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just got knocked on the head a little too hard. Any chance we'll have more company any time soon?"

"I honestly don't know. They never should have fallen for the smoke screen, so I wasn't surprised when someone showed up to inspect our crash. Then they made a couple of naive mistakes against my blaster and a grenade. They recovered from them fast as heck, but I got the distinct impression that we're about as alien to them as they are to us. It might give us an advantage or at least some time to make repairs."

"Can we make repairs?"

"No. But that doesn't mean anything, now does it? We'll get by, I promise you. _Whitecap_'s just as good broken as she is fixed."

The two Talion Hunters shared a laugh at his absurd statement, well familiar with the illogical logic behind it. The _Whitecap_ had gotten them out of situations Lara would never have dreamed could be escaped and had born up with less functioning parts than were required for flight. At times, the cargo yacht seemed virtually indestructible.

Gradually, the laughter died out as they looked out over the eerie landscape, with its unnatural blue glow and the exotic structure in the distance.

"Since I doubt there are many five-star hotels in the area and I don't happen to feel like taking you on a desert honeymoon, I'm going to get to work on that buffer conduit," Rigel declared.

"Yeah, you do that," Lara responded dryly. "I'll warn you if any more party-crashers show up."

"Thanks, honey."

"Shut up, Rigel!"

* * *

They took the _Ebon Hawk_, Revan insisting on piloting his old ship again and for the simple fact that only he knew how to get to the nearest Relay world in a region of space where standard hyperspace navigation was thrown out the window. Kuryama sat in the co-pilot's seat next to him, carefully observing his unorthodox procedures.

In the rear compartment, near the engine core, Darth Oden sat silently, black eyes focused on nothing visible. Visas had moved to the infirmary simply to be farther away from him; something about the Dark Lord disturbed her deeply. In an attempt to stave off the creeping tension threatening to throw them both into dour moods, Atton and Mira sparred with each other, practicing a particularly brutal form of hand-to-hand combat that was taught by paramilitary anti-terrorist organizations.

But there was no escaping the atmosphere. This was a ship filled with mortal enemies turned allies; a ship where no one truly understood or trusted the others. Visas shivered at the sight of Darth Oden. Atton and Mira scowled constantly in Revan's general direction. Kuryama and Revan each tried to function as if the other was not there, trying not even to converse.

Unfortunately, Kuryama had several questions for Revan, and they weren't going to be answered by studious noncontact. Conversation was unavoidable.

"When you summoned me, I instinctively knew what I had to do to survive the passage into the Unknown Regions," she said bluntly from the seat next to him. "And if the Null field is as thorough as you say, then why weren't Atton, Mira, and Visas killed by the journey? They did not have the protection of the balance, so how did they survive?" Kuryama asked.

Revan sighed at the question.

"The Miraluka is the one piece of this puzzle that fits both everywhere and nowhere," he said, his eyes examining the instruments. "She is undeniably connected to events in ways I have yet to unravel. The only clue I can give you is that what the Null field means for us, means something entirely different for her. I cannot explain further because I have no other answers." Revan turned to face her and saw the active interest in her eyes. He'd always excelled at playing professor. "Now Jaq and the Huntress on the other hand, are not Force sensitive. In fact, they are profoundly non-sensitive. The Null field has no effect on them."

Kuryama snorted. "That's nonsense, Revan. I've been traveling with them for some time, and they're not just sensitive. They're Jedi material."

"And I can see what your own senses see, but I perceive the entire picture. They were _given_ the Force, Kuryama. It is not the same, despite having the same appearance. Whatever they have become is not what we commonly think of as Force-sensitive," Revan responded. Kuryama brushed aside the condescending tone of his voice.

"Kreia..." she whispered as the truth struck her like a physical blow. Even from beyond the grave, Darth Traya, that double-crossing, manipulative, utterly amoral old witch continued to run her life. She could not leave any matter untouched by her poisonous grip, even in death. If the hag were not already floating in a million pieces among the twice-dead ruins of the perditious Malachor V, Kuryama would have throttled the woman with her own two hands.

Even Revan's ears pricked at the sound of the despised woman's name.

"Darth Traya was a fool," he pronounced with dispassionate distaste. "Oh yes, I've kept informed," he added as Kuryama gaped. "She believed she was aiding me with her myriad schemes, lies, and manipulations. In the end, she was so blinded by her own alleged wisdom and selfishness that she nearly did all the Nihil's work for them. Traya came within steps of sending the galaxy into the very same oblivion she claimed to oppose."

Revan shook his head in utter disgust.

Kuryama knew he had probed her mind to reach that conclusion. She didn't care. He deserved to know the awful truth of what his former master had done. She did nothing to hide the memories of Kreia's cruel exploitation of her and many others. They sat like stinging, salted wounds in her soul, laid bare for all to see. Let him read it - and let him know that she had no intention of being controlled ever again.

The navigation computer began flashing a warning indicating an unsafe exit from hyperspace. Revan took control as the whiteness of hyperspace converged into the dotted black expanse of normal space. In the distance ahead they saw the ghostly blue glowing sphere of the Relay, orbiting no star, against the almost solid white backdrop of the galaxy's edge.

"Alert the crew, we've arrived," Revan ordered, stretching his neck as he took manual control.

Kuryama sprang from her seat and left the cockpit. Walking up to the infirmary, she opened the door and nodded to Visas. The unspoken message was understood and Visas was immediately on her feet and following her, lightsabre at the ready. The sounds of physical struggle coming from the main hold caught her attention, and Kuryama found Mira with Atton in a headlock. Atton was cursing most profusely.

"Atton! Mira!" she barked.

In a flash, they both backed off and turned their attention to her.

"General!" they responded in unison.

"Get ready, we're about to make landfall," Kuryama ordered. They both immediately got to checking and strapping on their gear.

Satisfied, Kuryama moved past the main hold and towards the rearmost section of the ship. In the engine compartment she found the man she had once known as Orann Dalez sitting with his legs crossed and terrible black eyes seeing as it were straight through the hull of the ship and into the void of space.

"Orann, we're approaching the Relay."

She felt Visas tense behind her as Oden shifted his penetrating gaze.

Startling her, Kuryama saw a flicker of humanity in his dark eyes. There was even the slightest trace of sorrow in his voice.

"My name is no longer Orann, General. In some ways perhaps it never has been. Darth Oden is who I am now."

Oden rose to his feet, he waved his hands over his belt and a pair of fitted silver bracelets, each with a concave chevron positioned beneath the hand, clasped themselves over his wrists.

"I am ready," he pronounced.

* * *

Following gut instinct and phenomenal energy readings, Revan brought the _Ebon Hawk_ down through the clouds of the Relay's blue atmosphere. If anything, the surface of the planet was even more unsettling up close. Blue light shot forth from cracks in the otherwise flat surface of barren rock that stretched from horizon to horizon, dotted by sharp, faceted spires. Amid the host of the tall stone monuments, one in particular stood out; this one the base of an intense blue beam that shot up into the sky.

Between ten and twenty alien ships had landed in the vicinity of the active spire. Revan recognized them as short-range Nihil troop transports, only a small garrison but still capable of carrying enormous numbers. The blade-like ships also had cannons. As the _Hawk_ approached, giant armatures on the ships' spines shifted and brought guns to bear.

The Force moving through him, Revan instinctively threw the _Ebon Hawk_ into a defensive roll, firing off a few shots with its own dual cannon. The maneuver managed to spare the ship hits from sizzling black energy blasts from the Nihil artillery, and Revan instantly gunned the afterburners, putting the spire between him and them.

Swinging around the spire, Revan saw something unexpected. A cloud of black smoke rising from the end of a long skid mark. Someone had crashed - and very recently. Both to investigate and hide the _Hawk_ in the smokescreen, Revan landed the ship just down-wind of the source.

He reached out through the Force and found to his utter surprise that the source of the smoke was a pair of smoke grenades lodged in the engine compartment of a combination yacht/cargo ship of a well-known, if outdated, design. He made a mental note to examine the strange find later and sprang from the pilot's seat.

Revan found the crew waiting in the main hold. Some of them he knew, others he had met only hours ago, and he was about to trust the first step of the resistance to their hands. But he knew he couldn't have made better choices had he personally picked each and every one of them.

Kuryama was quite simply the best - she was one of the few Jedi he'd trusted with a rank equal to his own during the war. Jaq 'Atton' Rand and Mira the Huntress he knew less about, though he had a certain familiarity with Jaq from the days of the Jedi Civil War. Both he could easily tell were with Kuryama to the end, despite their preconceived bias against Jedi. The Miraluka, Visas Marr, about whom Revan knew both so much and so little, he knew just from their short interaction was fiercely loyal to Kuryama - almost obsessively in his opinion. Visas saw her as a savior, a messiah - and she was a faithful disciple.

Lastly he considered Darth Oden, the Dark Lord who had spawned from the death of the man he once was. His will to destroy was so powerful that he had come to be beyond many of the laws that governed life itself. He alone wielded the power needed to start the unmaking of the Null field. Regardless of his many questionable motives, he was the only one capable of doing what had to be done. There was no one else.

This mission would make or break their alliance, and decide, for good or evil, the fate of the resistance.

Time ticked away, he would have to make this short.

"We all know what's at stake," Revan informed them. "If the Null field is not brought down, the Nihil will have their invasion without any fear of retaliation. Their campaign will be swift and absolute. With the galaxy under their rule the Force will die and along with it everything it affects. The last time the Nihil tried, they nearly succeeded and plunged the galaxy into centuries of chaos. It all began here, with the forming of the Null field, and this is where it will end. With the destruction of the Null field we will begin the undoing of the Nihil's legacy of hate."

Heads nodded in agreement, approval. Weapons were checked grimly.

The cargo ramp opened, the unnatural blue glow of the planet spilling into the ship.

"The time is now," Revan proclaimed.

Atton cracked his knuckles. "Let's do this."

Without a word, Darth Oden bowed and headed down the ramp. Kuryama slowly followed, Visas striding in front of her with her lightsabre at the ready. Atton and Mira sauntered along behind the others at their own pace, restlessly fingering blasters and explosive devices.

Revan stood at the base of the ramp and watched as they disappeared into the smoky, blue haze. Just before she passed out of sight Kuryama turned back to face him. She opened her mouth to speak... then shook her head, biting back the words. Instead she gave him a look that took him back almost fifteen years.

She was going to risk everything once more because she believed him to be right. The unspoken message was as clear in her eyes as it had been that one terrible evening when he had first planned his treason against the Council.

As Kuryama turned and was lost to his sight, Revan pushed the retrospective thoughts out of his mind. The level of danger was potentially every bit as extreme to him as it was to those embarking towards the glowing spire. The less distracted he was, the better were the chances that they would all make it off the Relay world alive. He had some investigating to do, however.

He skirted across the zone concealed by the smoke cloud which drifted ever so slowly in the constant, listless breeze. He inspected the ship responsible for the smoke. Letters that had obviously been blazed across the gray expanse of the outer hull with a plasma cutter on low setting spelled out the word 'whitecap'. As he came nearer, Revan noticed an exposed blaster cannon on the ship's spine tracking his movements, he also noticed a man crouched next to an open engine access panel.

He saw the man put a hand to his ear as if receiving communication from a small headset, which was exactly what he was doing. The man shot to his feet and instantly whipped out a blaster, training it on Revan.

Revan obligingly held up his hands in surrender, hoping to mollify the man and whoever was controlling the cannon, though he could easily have neutralized both.

"Stay right there! Who are you?" The man demanded.

"I could ask the same thing," Revan responded, keeping his voice even. "There aren't many people who come this far out beyond the Rim."

The answer threw the man's thoughts into disarray, though he didn't let a bit of it show. "Yeah, well. Then there are those people who didn't have a choice."

"What wrong with your ship?" Revan asked. The man mumbled something evasive but his thoughts betrayed him easily; the ship's primary engine buffer conduit had explosively failed and he was working feverishly to fix the problem by attempting an ill-advised bypass.

"Here, this might help," Revan called out casually and flung his lightsabre at the man, who caught it easily.

The man frowned. "What, are you crazy? How will this help?"

Revan leaped easily up to the top of the ship, took the lightsabre from the man's hands and moved his fingers expertly over the weapon. He unfastened a tiny clasp, slid off a protective housing, and snapped open the hilt's two halves. He withdrew the focusing crystal and handed it to the suspicious man.

"If you're going to go through with that dangerous bypass, you'll need something capable of handling the energy load, otherwise you'll likely blow your entire ship's power grid. Use this," Revan advised.

The man's eyebrows raised in intrigue and surprise at Revan's helpfulness.

"You're a Jedi," he observed.

Revan nodded tolerantly. So far, the man's intelligence had failed to impress him.

"Thanks, I think this will work." He put his hand to his ear again, activating his ear-set. "Lara, I think you can let this one go. Trust me." The man offered Revan his hand. "My name's Rigel, Lara's inside training the cannon on you; sorry about that, we don't know who to trust out here."

Revan shook the man's hand, admiring the strong, firm grip. "Calum Jan, Jedi Knight," he responded. It wouldn't be in his best interests to let the man know he was Dark Lord Revan of the Sith. "I'd suggest you work fast, this planet is occupied by exceedingly hostile forces."

Rigel nodded his head meaningfully. "I know, we've already met. Somewhere in that cloud of smoke are the remains of an alien ship and tons of totally evil-looking bad guy corpses."

Examining the surroundings through the Force, Revan found that the man's assertion was true. He was surprised that they had managed to kill so many.

"They will return, I guarantee that. And there is another reason you will want to hurry."

"What's that?"

"This planet is going to be destroyed."

Rigel's jaw dropped. Revan heard tinny noises from the man's ear-set; Lara, he guessed, making her own flabbergasted reply.

"Y-yeah, I suppose that's reason enough to hurry things along," Rigel mumbled. "It's okay if I use this?" He asked, indicating Revan's lightsabre crystal.

In answer, Revan opened his cloak, revealing six extra lightsabres hanging from his belt and four more strapped against the inside of the vesture.

"I guess you're fine," Rigel answered for himself and got to work.

Revan surreptitiously passed a calming wave of Force influence over Rigel to enable him to work with greater efficiency. His ship and its cannon could be useful for his part of the plan. Absently, he cast his gaze over towards the glowing spire, where he expected a battle had already broken out.

* * *

The white-armored Nihil soldiers seemed innumerable. Once Kuryama and the others got within a half mile of the spire the hordes of soldiers had closed in on them, attempting to swamp them with sheer numbers. For their part, Kuryama and the others killed them nearly as fast as they came, but it didn't deter the unending waves of reinforcements.

Each soldier wore body armor of such a bleached white that it looked more like bone than steel, the masks covering their faces even more so. Most of them wielded sinister-looking hand devices that discharged deadly black energy bolts. Others, however, bore weapons eerily similar to lightsabres except for the horrid black color of the energy blade.

The first of these energy sword-wielding soldiers Kuryama had faced was easily dispatched. With one strike of her lightsabre she knocked aside the black beam and stabbed the Nihil soldier in the face. The next one was not so easy. It brought Kuryama to the grim realization that the Nihil were quick learners; naive from having never before fought a war, but fast to correct their errors.

Kuryama and Visas both cut into their enemies with vicious resolve, plunging their lightsabres into scores of Nihil soldiers, deflecting hundreds of shots from their energy weapons, and fencing off those wielding the black lightsabres. The two Jedi dealt death with staggering proficiency.

Lagging slightly behind so as to give Kuryama and Visas room to wreak their destruction, Atton and Mira launched their own attacks with blasters, hand grenades, and explosive rockets. Searing detonations scorched craters and tossed horribly burned soldiers into the air. Waves of blaster fire from their weapons raked the white-armored Nihil, killing dozens and ricocheting off spinning energy blades to cut down yet more.

At the front of the small column, Darth Oden inflicted far more horrific death than the others combined. The first Nihil soldiers to die had fallen to his blades. When he jerked his wrists, Oden's hands had become enveloped in an eerie dark blue energy field similar to that of a lightsabre. Flattening his hands, the energy straightened into long blades that were all but identical to lightsabres. Nothing could stand in his way, every swipe of his arms cleaved one or more Nihil soldier, every thrust impaled someone, every retraction of his hands blocked an energy blast and sent it back at the attacker with deft precision.

They reached the spire over a trail of smoking, mutilated bodies. Inside, only a handful of Nihil soldiers waited, each wielding a pair of black energy swords. Atton and Mira hung back to take potshots while the two Jedi and the Sith occupied the Nihil's blades.

Unlike those previously encountered, these Nihil were adept with the sizzling energy swords. Kuryama and Visas were forced onto the defensive, kept busy fending off the blistering attacks and unable to move forward. Slowly, they began to give ground, yielding step by step to the furious assault of their faceless foes. Their black energy swords were everywhere, slashing, sweeping, cutting, and stabbing at such a fast pace that Kuryama found it increasingly difficult to think past making her next desperate block or deflection.

She heard Visas cry in pain and was distracted for split second. Her lightsabre wavered and a black beam hissed into the breach as she tried to close the hole in her defense. Gasping with shock and pain, Kuryama felt the energy blade graze the side of her chest and inflict a searing flash of agony before she pushed it away with her lightsabre.

The pain brought her mind sharply back into focus and she fathomed the Nihil's battle strategy; it was an unreserved attack intended to overwhelm the opposition's ability to formulate adequate defenses. She'd fallen victim to it and nearly paid the ultimate price. But it was also a weakness, for a lack of guard could be found in that total attack.

Instead of flinching back and surrendering yet more ground to her adversary, Kuryama struck back vengefully. There was a terrible clashing as the two blades met in full-force. Not expecting her sudden turn of change of tactic, the Nihil was momentarily stunned by the counter-strike, and Kuryama pressed her advantage ruthlessly, sensing an opening. Her judgment was correct, the Nihil took an extra second to collect himself for his next attack. Into that tiny window of gained time, Kuryama unleashed the strongest Force pulse she could summon at the spur of the moment, compressing it into a blast no wider than her fist.

The Nihil had no chance. The pulse bored a hole through his mask and took off half of his head.

As the corpse fell before her, Kuryama turned to aid Visas, who was bleeding heavilyfrom her arm. Showing fierce determination, the Miraluka was holding off the two Nihil with everything she had. She had disarmed one of them, forcing the other to toss his second energy sword to his companion, but they still were able to contain and press her farther back.

Kuryama took a Force-assisted leap towards the valiant Miraluka. Flipping in midair, she cleaved off the arm of the nearest Nihil, who uttered an inhuman scream of pain. Landing beside Visas, Kuryama shared a quick look with the Miraluka and they instantly went on the attack.

Visas easily picked off the injured Nihil with a deft slash across the chest. The remaining Nihil was unable to fend off their joint attack with his single blade and fell to simultaneous strikes from both his opponents.

They looked around, Darth Oden was nowhere in sight.

"Where's Oden?" Kuryama yelled to Atton and Mira. She got frantic pointing in response. Looking in the direction indicated, she caught a glimpse of Oden's black figure silhouetted against an intense blue glow shining through an enormous archway that led to a cavernous chamber in the center of the spire. Kuryama saw smoking pieces of dismembered Nihil lying on the floor in his wake.

"Hurry!" She urged Atton and Mira, taking off in a sprint after Darth Oden, Visas close on her heels.

Following the trail of bodies, Kuryama soon found herself at the mouth of one of the largest open chambers she had ever seen. Conical in shape, it had an enormous diameter and rose to a staggering height. It was like the Senate Chamber on Coruscant turned upside down. And in the center of the vast room at the heart of the spire, the blue light that was so prevalent everywhere on the Relay world was compressed into a concentrated stream of pure light, rushing downward into the bowels of the planet itself.

It was at the edge of this whirlwind of blue light that Darth Oden halted. His hands no longer engulfed by his bizarre lightsabre beams, he spread his arms out from his chest and tilted his head back, preparing to call forth his power. Kuryama could barely see him against the brilliance of the light.

They had come far enough. Oden had to complete his task alone, there was nothing any of them could do but guard him.

Kuryama held her hand up to halt Atton and Mira. "Stop here. This is as far as we go."

Their faces both grim, the two crouched by the side of the arch and trained their blasters out towards the open terrain where the Nihil soldiers would be massing for a crushing counter-attack. Visas stood at Kuryama's side, holding her blue lightsabre at the ready. Kuryama's viridian blade hung down at her side as she surveyed the grounds beyond.

The white figures of Nihil soldiers were rapidly gathering outside the spire. Something was deterring them from entering, however. None, it seemed, were willing to set foot inside the massive structure.

Kuryama saw sweat beading on Atton's brow and Mira's neck muscles tensing in anxious anticipation of the inevitable battle.

When their numbers were so many that it seemed they would be pushed into the spire from sheer force of pressure, the Nihil charged at the foursome holding their ground underneath the soaring arch.

Mira and Atton each tossed a thermal detonator at the oncoming horde and unleashed a hail of blaster bolts. The twin explosions sent tremors through the floor, blasted large craters, and incinerated scores of Nihil in their tracks. The torrential wave of blaster fire cut down yet more. But the Nihil's relentless numbers pressed in unceasingly, not in the least bit discouraged by the staggering casualties.

As the two with the blasters kept firing, Kuryama and Visas both launched themselves forward with Force-assisted jumps and landed right at the head of the advancing column. The blue and pale green lightsabres sang out, chopping and hacking apart the charging Nihil soldiers with resolute purpose. Deadly black energy bolts were now flying from the Nihil's weapons, dotting the walls and the floor with scorch marks and deflecting off Kuryama and Visas' whirling lightsabres, the rebounds often dispatching other Nihil instead of their intended targets.

Swarming with incredible force, the Nihil began to slide troops around the two women furiously working to keep them at bay, forcing Atton and Mira to adjust their aim. They mowed down dozens only for hundreds more to rush in to take their places. Corpses riddled with holes from blaster fire were piling up on the smooth floor of the spire while still more fell with hands, arms, and heads missing from lightsabre wounds.

It didn't matter how many died, more rushed in to replace them. Eventually the crush of their numbers began to push Kuryama and Visas back, every inch of lost ground covered with freshly dead bodies. Atton yelled a warning and threw another thermal detonator as the two Jedi leaped out of danger, and the explosion decimated a large number of the front-runners. Burning Nihil bodies flew in all directions.

Kuryama and Visas retreated almost entirely back to the arched entryway. The Nihil were flooding into the spire's antechamber and filling it wall to wall with their numbers, despite all efforts to continue keeping them at bay.

This was to be their last stand.

Suddenly, a massive tremor shook the entire structure. Far behind them, at the center of the spire, Darth Oden had unleashed his full power.

Orann Dalez had committed acts of nearly unfathomable destruction before, but nothing came close to what he was now doing. He was wreaking not only the annihilation of a planet, but beginning a chain of similar events that would cascade across the entire rim of the galaxy.

It took Oden far more effort and concentration than anything he had ever attempted, but as Kuryama, Visas, Atton, and Mira held off the Nihil juggernaut he sank his power deep into the core of the Relay world. With tremendous strength of will he tore apart the ancient constructs buried miles down under the planet's surface, halting the current of blue light that he recognized as a visible representation of the Force being sucked down into the giant reservoir that was the Relay.

The disruption cause seismic waves to ripple out in all directions, opening up thousands of additional cracks in the flat rock surface. The blue light that gushed from deep within the planet started turning white as the shaking grew in strength.

The storm now raging inside the Relay world would soon engulf the whole planet with its unadulterated destructive fury. The countdown had begun.

As the brightness in the central chamber grew to a damaging degree, Darth Oden left the swirling, chaotic mass of blue and white light to stand with those who traveled with him. He gave Kuryama a nod - a gesture more than ten years old between them - that she instantly understood: mission accomplished.

Oden jerked his wrists and flattened his fingers and the two dark blue lightsabres blades sprang forth from the gleaming silver wristbands he wore. Kuryama and Visas both brought their own sabres into high guards. Atton and Mira abandoned their long-ranged blasters for up-close-and-personal weapons; Atton grabbed a vibrosword and Mira took a pair of close-range ion repeaters.

As one, they charged at the waiting Nihil army.

In disarray from the quaking ground and blinding light, the Nihil fell before them in giant swathes of carnage. Outside, they could see the Nihil ships powering up, the glare of the planet's blue-white light reflecting sharply off their polished silver hulls and blade-like curves. And on the plains before them, the five companions saw the full assembled might of the Nihil forces on the Relay. There were thousands and thousands of them around the spire and in between the ships. Already they were in the process of evacuating, their leaders apparently knowing full well what the seismic tremors and bursting white light portended. But many thousands of soldiers still stood to block any escape for the intruders.

Rapidly, the Nihil closed in around them, forcing the five to stand and fight.

The bizarre beams stemming from Oden's hands cut down Nihil soldiers by the dozen. Visas used both her lightsabre and crippling blasts of concussive Force energy against the horde. Kuryama swung the viridian beam of her lightsabre in a whirlwind of death. Blood flew from deep wounds inflicted by Atton's vengeful vibrosword. Wrist rockets and blistering fire screamed from Mira's launchers and repeater-pistols. Hundreds lay dead on the ground but the Nihil simply pressed harder to prevent their escape, even as the shaking and rumbling of the Relay roared louder.

The cracks in the ground began to split wide open, some devouring hundreds of Nihil soldiers and smaller ships that had yet to take off. The apocalypse clock was speedily running down, the Relay world had very little time left.

A new sound suddenly joined the cacophony; ship-mounted blaster cannons. Red and green bolts of heavy fire rained down on the Nihil around the five companions who desperately fought. Looking up, they saw the familiar gray and red hull of the _Ebon Hawk_ swooping in on their position, guns blazing, followed by a smaller gray vessel with just as much firepower aimed at the Nihil army below.

Almost angrily, the Nihil ships retaliated, filling the whitened sky with black weapons fire. The two ships evaded the black discharges deftly, still raining fire of their own on the Nihil ground forces around the five embattled individuals.

As the _Hawk_ screamed in for a landing, the gray ship laid down a torrential hail of pulverizing shots that cleared a wide enough area for the other ship to touch down.

Revan didn't even bother putting the_ Hawk_ to ground. Instead, he held the ship in a low hover a few feet off the rock and lowered the cargo ramp. Oden, Kuryama, and the others didn't need any encouragement and hurriedly jumped aboard, the Nihil horde never more than a few feet behind. As soon as the last pair of boots hit the ramp, Revan pointed _Hawk_'s nose to the sky and gunned the engines. The gray _Whitecap_ followed close on his heels. Those few Nihil ships that had made it off the ground screamed after them while the sky burned brighter and brighter.

From space, the Relay world no longer glowed blue, it had flashed into a white nearly as bright as a star.

The Nihil ships pursuing the _Ebon Hawk_ and _Whitecap_ suddenly broke away and abruptly jumped to hyperspace.

A moment later, on the planet's surface, the already-enormous fissures in the ground tore open completely. Giant shelves of the red rock were forced upward as the planet itself started to burst apart. The white glare boiled away, ripping the Relay's atmosphere with it as it dissolved into space, leaving behind only the red surface that continued to contort.

Poised and ready to make the jump to hyperspace, those on the _Ebon Hawk_ and the _Whitecap_ watched as the planet burst like a colossal bubble, releasing a dazzling blue cloud amongst the trillions and trillions of tons of pulverized rock.

Just before Revan gave the order to make the jump, they saw the blue cloud disperse, spreading faster than the eye could follow, beginning to make its way around the rim of the entire galaxy. Soon, very soon, the same events would repeat an uncountable number of times on identical Relay worlds all along that rim and the Null field, weakened already by the loss of one Relay, would be utterly erased.


	4. Siege From Within

In the hundred and twenty years since he was named the Sacred Saint of the Nihil, Akar Xiylehn had been surprised by very little. In his position of vast power and authority he controlled the lives of billions, and he enforced his will openly through the forces of the Inquisition, or covertly through the Rayaj. Rare was the time when all was not well in hand, for obedience and submission was homogeneous over the whole Nihil Empire, as it had been for hundreds upon hundreds of years; since the days of the Old Revolutions.

At this dawn of the New Crusade, however, he found himself surprised - shocked even - on not one, but two occasions, the second infinitely more devastating than the first.

Learning that a heathen from beyond the Field had tapped into the power of the Rayaj was more of a shock than he had at first realized. Not more than a day later, before he had had a chance to fully absorb the information gathered from the wreckage of the destroyed Inquisition fleet, Xharang Palace was rocked by the news of the Field's destruction.

Akar had ordered the word suppressed, the palace was quarantined and everyone involved placed under house arrest. News of such an atrocity had to be delivered carefully, or disorder would reign.

Word was sent out through the holy city of Shatoriem; the Sacred Saint would speak.

Millions of Shatoriem's residents filled the colossal Unity Square that lay before Xharang at the center of the city. Yet more clogged the dizzying streets, watching screens at every corner. The whole city waited upon the words of the Holy One.

Appearing in the midst of over a hundred ceremonial guards, Akar stepped to the brink of a balcony that overlooked the teeming masses of Shatoriem. His voice boomed over the assembly, amplified and transmitted to every screen in the city.

"_Our Holy Empire has been struck by a heinous act of war. The heathen followers of the Force attack us through the Field. They weaken the Field, knowing it weakens us. They see fit to destroy the Field, to lay our Empire bare to their savage and uncivilized beliefs, to bury us once more in the oppression of the unholy Force._"

The crowd erupted in indignant roars that were quieted immediately when Akar raised his hands for silence.

"_We will not stand for this unprecedented aggression! We will strike back at the heathens with all the fury of our armies! The time of the New Crusade is upon us, and finally all remnants of the Force will be become nothing more than distant memories without the power to enslave so much as a single soul! The waiting is over, my people; the New Crusade begins!_"

Once again, the crowd erupted, but this time in cheers of joy. The sound was deafening as all of Shatoriem raised its voice.

* * *

Captain Tarrell paced on the bridge of his ship _Wilderness_, high above the world of Mortear. The frigate _Wilderness_ was one of a six-ship patrol in the Mortear system, part of the Republic's dangerously thin-stretched Deep Space Fleet. The patrol went on for interminable hours in the Outer Rim system, close on the trade routes to more important systems like Berga and Hecate and therefore considered a priority. There wasn't much beyond Mortear, just a few independent worlds filled with drifters and transients, but twice had an enemy come unexpectedly from nothing during the last fifteen years, and Republic brass wanted early warning the next time it happened.

Tarrell doubted there would be much to warn against in the next thirty years. Given the broken state in which the whole galaxy was left after the Jedi Civil War, there was very little chance of any significant threat rising for decades to come. And with all the money that was being squandered on costly, unprofitable projects like Telos, Tarrell didn't see why patrolling the hind end of Republic space was still a focus of taxpayers' credits.

To his utter surprise, the navigator spoke up suddenly, urgently.

"Sir, sensors are picking up incoming!"

"Position and bearing?" the CO asked.

"Ninety degrees off the starboard bow on intercept, Captain."

"Alert the rest of the patrol," Tarrell ordered the communications officer.

"Aye, aye, sir!"

Before Tarrell could even get over his shock at something actually happening, the navigator's voice interrupted his flurried thoughts. "Great Force, will you look at that!" he gaped. Tarrell seconded the man's apt reaction.

The amount of ships appearing on the sensor screen as they dropped out of hyperspace boggled the mind. They showed up so fast that the computer was automatically consolidating the individual blips into groups of ten, twenty, fifty, even hundreds and they still filled the screen.

A channel to the lead Republic patrol ship opened on _Wilderness_'s bridge. "What in the name of the old prophets is that?" Commodore Landers demanded over the comm from the capital ship _Levinsky_.

"It's certainly no random occurrence," was all Tarrell could think of to say.

"Well, we'd better go and investigate, Captains," Landers ordered, his commands directed at all six ships.

At a nod from his captain, the navigator turned _Wilderness_ to follow _Levinsky_'s lead as they swung around to face the unimaginably huge fleet that awaited them.

The bad feeling that had sank into Tarrell's gut the moment he saw the numbers on the sensor screen intensified once the ships came into view. The glittering silver hulls and wickedly blade-like curves set them apart from anything Tarrell had seen during his whole career in the Republic Navy. They did not have the dreaded wedge shape that was universally feared throughout the whole Republic. Instead, if it were possible, their crablike design instilled a terror greater than anything the Sith warships could ever match.

The alien fleet was moving much too fast for Tarrell's comfort. He was overcome by a feeling of cold dread.

"Turn the ship around and head for Mortear's shadow," Tarrell ordered. No one moved. He realized he'd whispered the words too quietly for anyone but himself to hear. He repeated the command, louder this time.

"Sir? We're under orders from--" the navigator began before Tarrell cut him off.

"Comply with the order! Get my ship out of here, now!" He felt sick in his stomach as he dumbly watched the enormous fleet coming closer by the instant.

_Wilderness_ lurched as it abruptly changed course, coming about almost a full turn to streak towards Mortear III. The crew clung to everything they could to avoid being thrown around. Angry transmissions came from Commodore Landers aboard _Levinsky_. Tarrell made no response.

The icy feeling of terror grew as Landers' indignant demands that he return to formation turned into desperate pleas for assistance. Sensors registered a rapid discharge of an exotic energy from the oncoming fleet; weapons fire. The screens were heartlessly two-dimensional as they portrayed an implacable stream of lethal energy engulfing the five other patrol ships. Frighteningly quick, all five friendlies dropped off the screen.

The enemy fleet was adjusting its course, heading straight for Mortear III. Its crew was silent as _Wilderness_ slipped into the planet's shadow.

Sweat beaded down Tarrell's neck as they waited, minute after agonizing minute, holding their position in the darkness. The sensors suddenly screamed warnings as massive energy discharges washed the planet; the alien fleet was bombing Mortear III.

The colossal fleet began swarming the planet, slowly encircling its entire circumference, and unleashing hails of terrifying black energy mortars at its surface.

Tarrell realized that they were no longer safe. There was nothing he and his small ship could do against such unparalleled forces, he couldn't stop the utter annihilation of Mortear III.

"Get us out of here," he ordered the helmsman, "we have to warn the Republic."

Without a word of protest, the helmsman did just as he commanded, and _Wilderness_ fled the scene of carnage while the seemingly innumerable enemy ships laid waste to the world below.

* * *

The face of the hologram was one the galaxy knew well. Even during the years lost in her aimless wanderings, Kuryama had been unable to escape the holovids idolizing the young Jedi Padawan Bastila Shan. During the Jedi Civil War she had been hailed by the vids as 'the Republic's best hope' and 'a Jedi prodigy'. Then she had suddenly disappeared, and many suspected she had followed Revan, and there were whispers that she might have even married the reformed Sith Lord.

Now, five years later, here she was.

"Welcome back, Revan." Her hologram smiled sweetly. When Revan returned the warm smile, a smile of love, Kuryama realized that they must indeed be married.

Revan's voice was triumphant. "I'm pleased to report that our mission was a success."

Bastila raised her eyebrow. "Indeed? I wouldn't have noticed, what with all the Sith and Jedi who've been arriving here since a few hours ago. Juhani's been up in a fret over it all."

Kuryama remembered Bastila Shan as having been little more than a child by the time she had gone to follow Revan in his crusade. She was no longer that child. Kuryama could see in her eyes the maturity of a grown woman.

Revan chuckled. "Tell Juhani not to worry, I don't expect the fighting will start before I arrive."

Bastila's smiled withered. "Perhaps Juhani is right to worry, Revan."

"We have to do this," Revan said firmly.

"I know, I just don't like it. There is a reason the two Orders have been at war for thousands of years, millenia of prejudices cannot be simply brushed aside in a few hours."

"They will have to do their best, or we are all doomed."

"I know, Revan. I think Juhani and I will worry anyway."

"Fair enough, I suppose. Oh, and Bastila?"

"Hmm?"

"We picked up two mercenaries," Revan explained. To her raised eyebrow, he added, "Don't ask me how they happened upon the Relay world. They might be of some use, so keep the ghost squadrons grounded; I know they can be trigger happy sometimes."

"Very well. Just make sure you know what you're doing."

"Don't I always?" he remarked flippantly. He turned sober when Bastila frowned sternly at him. "We'll be landing shortly. See you soon."

The blue hologram faded.

Kuryama looked at Revan, at the faint smile still on his lips.

"It would seem the rumors are true," she remarked. "Bastila Shan, hero of the Republic, married to Revan, former Dark Lord of the Sith."

Revan nodded wordlessly. Kuryama felt a sudden pang of sorrow for Mical; she knew how much he had loved her, but he was now dead.

Without emotion, she signaled the _Whitecap_, instructing their pilot to follow as they approached Revan's asteroid base.

Two Jedi and a dozen silver-armored soldiers awaited them in the hangar. As she strode down the _Ebon Hawk_'s cargo ramp, she recognized one of the Jedi as Bastila; the other, a Cathar wearing red robes, she assumed to be Juhani. The Cathar regarded her and Visas - who, as always, walked before her - with an intense golden gaze. Kuryama hoped there wouldn't be trouble between the two. Visas warily watched the Cathar and the silver-armored Sith soldiers.

Not to Kuryama's surprise, Revan and Bastila embraced.

"I missed you," Bastila said.

"It was mutual," Revan responded. He turned his head and indicated Kuryama. "May I introduce General Kuryama Nari."

Kuryama nodded briskly. Bastila acknowledged her and turned back to Revan.

"You have to come, now," she admonished.

"Yes, indeed," he answered. "Kuryama, Oden, I would like you to accompany us. The Jedi and Sith need to see who they are following."

The two generals silently acquiesced and Visas continued at Kuryama's side as Revan, Bastila, Juhani, and the Sith soldiers left the hangar.

The four non-Jedi; Atton, Mira, Rigel, and Lara, watched the procession leave. There was an uncomfortable silence as all four of them stood still, feeling left out. Atton broke the ice with a signature line.

"Got anything to drink?" he casually asked Rigel.

Mira was quick to second his suggestion. "I could sure use one right now."

Rigel grinned at her, ignoring Atton. "Gungan beer, juma juice, Tarisian ale, and even a little Alderanian burgundy," he answered, counting off on his fingers. He held his hand out to Mira hopefully. "I'm Rigel."

"Mira," she responded nonchalantly, "how about that beer? I need something strong."

"Right this way," Rigel said as he eagerly led her to the _Whitecap_.

Lara watched them go and looked at Atton. "You want anything?" she asked.

"Yeah, as a matter of fact I do," he answered. His tone was harmless enough, but a lecherous grin had spread over his face and he was staring at her... below the neck.

Without warning, Lara's blue hand came out of nowhere and slapped him hard in the face.

"Nice try. A blind cannok couldn't have missed that one," Lara informed him smartly.

Atton cursed himself, thinking he should be used to getting slapped by now.

"Sorry," he managed, feeling her glare. "Maybe a glass of juma?"

"Watered," she amended.

He sighed. "I guess that's about the best I can hope for, huh?"

Lara crossed her arms in victory. "Yep, for now anyway."

Atton decided to cut his losses and go with it. He shrugged.

"Better than nothing."

* * *

No one in the room dared move; all fourteen men and women of both Orders and several different species stood stock still in a loose circle, moving not so much as a single muscle as they breathlessly watched the two in the center of the circle who faced each other with stark hatred. One was a man wearing the robes of a Jedi with a prosthetic hand in which he held an unlit lightsabre, his other hand glowed brightly with restrained power. The other was a woman in the black robes of a Sith. Her face was pallid and veins stood out harshly just beneath the tight skin. Her eyes had a terrifying orange glow that silhouetted her pupils and stained her deep blue irises. Both her hands crackled with purple lightning that seemed begging to be released.

Neither the Jedi nor the Sith made a move for the other, they were completely motionless while they assessed each other.

The door suddenly flew open, and both unmoving combatants instinctively jerked their heads toward the source of the interruption, losing their concentration in the process.

Revan stood in the doorway, glaring with such intensity that all the Jedi and Sith backed away, leaving the two belligerents in the open. He turned his glower on them and they began to lift into the air, clutching at their throats.

Visas, Kuryama, and Darth Oden filed in behind Revan to stand at his side while he held the two offenders in his grip.

He spoke in a voice that bristled with quiet, deadly rage.

"This sort of behavior is unacceptable." He emphasized each syllable of the last word, leaving no room for misinterpretation by the two who hung helpless before him. With a thought, he dropped them to the floor.

Revan took the hostility but not the firmness from his voice as he addressed the rest of the Jedi and Sith who waited. "Your allegiances, whatever they may have been, no longer matter. Personal griefs are become irrelevant. Do not make the mistake of thinking that this is the time and place to settle grudges; be they personal or ideological. You are no longer Jedi or Sith, from this point forth you are protectors of the Force.

"You are here because I called you and you answered, and because I have led you once or even twice before. The time has come due to follow me again. Whether you see me as a general or Dark Lord does not matter to me, only that you follow."

No one spoke a word.

Angrily, Revan grabbed the fallen woman's dark robes and hauled her to her feet. Her unnaturally pale face and blazing eyes were only inches from his.

"I know you," he whispered. Her face showed nothing as he shoved her away.

Kuryama inhaled sharply, recognizing the twisted face of the woman in the black robes. "Norryl?"

The woman nodded her blond head. "It's Darth Norryl now." Angrily, she thrust a finger towards the Jedi still on the floor. "Because of him!"

When the Jedi picked himself off the floor, Kuryama recognized him as well. Like Norryl, he was much older than she had last seen him, but he hadn't changed as much.

"Hello, Jilon," she said flatly. She had never expected to see him again.

"General," he acknowledged. He looked back at Norryl, and cold fire returned to his eyes. "Step away from her, General. She is not worthy to fight for you. She's a murderous traitor."

Jilon had one of the most caring faces Kuryama had ever known; seeing it twist in loathing of Norryl was terrible to witness. But Norryl's haunting face glared back at him with equal intensity.

Kuryama nudged Jilon with a Force push. Surprised, he flinched back a few steps. Before a satisfied smile could spread over Norryl's lips, she received the same treatment. The gray-robed Jedi Exile then stepped away from Revan and swept the room with her monochromatic eyes.

"Some of you I know, like these here," she indicated Norryl and Jilon. "Others of you I do not know. But you all know who I am; I am General Nari from the Mandalorian crusades. For my part in the war the Jedi cast me out," a bitter smile crossed her face, "and the Sith hunted me as an animal.

"I swore to Jedi Master Atris that I would kill her and I did. I swore to destroy an alliance of three Sith Lords and all three died by my hand. Neither Order will claim me, for I have sinned grievously against both."

Her bitter smile turned to an expression of grim determination and cold acceptance.

"Allegiances do not matter to the one who seeks your blood. We face an enemy that seeks the blood of everything touched by the Force, seeks the end of the Force itself and the death of all life. This is a threat to everyone in the galaxy, but our enemy will first hunt us. They will exterminate us until we are so few you could count our numbers with a single hand. And to prevent our numbers from ever growing, they will kill the Force. Should that happen, everything connected by the Force; all living things, will die.

"They do not care. They are outside of the Force, and see it only as their oppressor. They will gladly sit back while the whole galaxy dies, if it will mean the end of the Force.

"Now choose: With us, or against us."

After a moment of silence, a black-robed man stood apart from the others. He crossed his arms with a smile of superiority on his face.

"I think Darth Traya was right. It would be better for the Force to die," he said, smirking.

Kuryama turned her eyes to him. "So you believe," she said tonelessly. Her gaze roamed the room. "Let any among you who feels this way stand forward," she commanded.

No one moved. The Sith reached for his lightsabre.

Kuryama lifted her hands and struck out at the Sith. A storm of white lightning hit him before he could reach the weapon. He had no chance whatsoever, the lightning cooked him alive in mere seconds.

"Those who are not with us are traitors to all life, and will be treated as such," Kuryama declared in cold menace. "Existence for trillions hangs in the balance."

She was sickened by what she had done, but too much was at stake to trust traitors borne of the perditious teachings of the madwoman Kreia. Kuryama held her dangerous glare.

With one accord, the remaining Jedi and Sith in the room fell to their knees, none wanting to be the last for fear of sharing the fate of the man who had spoken. And the long hours of explanation began.


	5. Sworn

"What do you mean we can't go? We're not Jedi, we're mercenaries; we've got jobs to take. You can't just hold us here!" Rigel protested. A few days had passed, and he and Lara had gotten over the rush of watching a planet explode and announced their intention to leave and get back to their work. Revan, however, thought otherwise and wouldn't let them leave.

"Unfortunately, yes I can," Revan responded.

"Look, I don't suppose you Jedi types know what mercenary life is like. We have to be picking up jobs almost constantly, just to keep the ship repaired! You're putting us out of work by keeping us here!"

Revan ignored his protests and changed the subject. "Where's your companion?"

Rigel was thrown off-balance. "What?"

"I asked where your companion is."

"What, you mean Lara? She's probably fixing the ship, or talking to that creepy guy Atton. What does this have to do with why we can't leave?"

"Well first things first, your hyperdrive computer isn't going to recognize any coordinates you give it unless you hack it - not a good thing to do. Secondly, if I am correct in my assessment of how you could possibly have made it out here beyond the Rim, it would be too dangerous to allow you to return."

"Okay, you've officially lost me."

Revan's stare hardened, and he told Rigel the cold truth. "You are too close to the Nihil, too similar. You both had just the tiniest sensitivity the Force, so small that passing through the Null field and having it severed was inconsequential to you. You are like they are, and in the midst of the Force-bathed galaxy they will sense you and you will not be able to escape. Jobless or not, you must stay for the time being. If and when this is over, I will reimburse you for time lost."

Rigel looked like he'd had the wind taken out of him. He could see Revan's reason and, despite not liking it, at least could understand it. "So who are you anyway?" he asked.

"I am Darth Revan."

Rigel sprang back a few steps, reaching for his blaster before he realized it wasn't there; Revan had it. He held it up admonishingly. "Show some manners towards your host. That war is long over."

"Do you know how many times Lara and I have turned down jobs that involved killing you? We're not stupid, despite what you may think, and knew trying to kill you would be a useless gesture that would get us killed in the process. Credits don't do dead people any good," Rigel explained. "Sorry for trying to pull the blaster. It's just instinct, you know?"

Revan nodded. "Right now, there are more important things to worry about than the ideological conflicts between the Sith and the Jedi. It will be all we can do just to preserve life itself. Maybe afterwards we will have the luxury of philosophical differences."

Rigel mumbled something in agreement.

"Now go find Lara and get your ship ready," Revan ordered. "You may be going somewhere yet."

"Consider it done."

As Rigel scurried off, Revan gave a sigh of fatigue as he headed back through the halls, passing robed figures here and there.

For over three days the Sith and Jedi had continued to arrive, each successive group needing to be broken into his service and everything explained to them. Thankfully, it was at the point where others could relieve some of the load from him; Kuryama and her companion Visas were strikingly convincing, but his presence as the Dark Lord of the Sith was often still required to sway the last few. Only five others had warranted prompt execution since the first group arrived, Kuryama handled all of them with stoic fortitude.

They were strong enough now to strike back, turn the struggle into a true war.

He'd heard the reports from his vast network of spies spread throughout the galaxy; the Nihil were on the attack and the Republic was crumbling before them. Just as he had predicted.

He took a deep breath before proceeding into the war room.

Inside waited his inner circle. His wife Bastila, Juhani, Darth Oden, Kuryama, Visas Marr, Atton Rand, and Mira the Huntress all waited for him. At that moment, the burden weighing down on him was heavier than ever. Between the eight of them, they had to save life itself.

Revan took his seat.

"We are ready," he said.

"Ready for what?" Mira asked crossly.

Bastila answered for him. "Our forces are now sufficient to begin a counter-attack against the Nihil."

"Okay, hold on just a second," Atton interrupted. "Just where do we start?"

"If you could hold your tongue, Rand, it will be explained," Revan snapped.

Bastila continued. "Militarily, victory is not possible against the Nihil, as Revan has explained. The only chance to defeat them is to cause them to become embroiled in a massive civil war. If they can be reawakened to the Force, it will tear apart their whole society.

"The Nihil civilization is built around strict obedience to higher authorities. In essence, it is the perfect hierarchy; a system of power that transforms the uncounted billions into willing servants, slaves even, to those above them. Their enforced religion casts the Force, and all touched by it, as their eternal oppressors and enemies. It was this belief that originally united them from the chaos that followed the establishment of the Null field.

"Their religious leader, the highest order hierarch, is the Sacred Saint. He has unquestioned power over every aspect of Nihil society. If he were to suddenly become sensitive to the Force, it would create a schism so wide it could not be mended. The whole Nihil Empire would dissolve into civil war."

"We must find this Sacred Saint, then," Visas put forth.

Bastila looked to Revan, he nodded in agreement with the Miraluka. "Yes, and we will have to separate him from his followers if this plan is to have a hope of success."

"Revan, you've got to be joking. That would be like trying to kidnap the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic! From what you've told us, it would be suicide long before we ever even got close!" Mira objected, raising her voice almost to a shout.

Revan's voice was even as he responded. "Nevertheless, it is what we must do." The red-haired bounty hunter grumbled something under her breath and fell silent.

"I suppose then," Kuryama interjected, "that he will be well-guarded. Such a society I would expect is willing sacrifice millions of lives before letting harm get a glance at him. It will not be easy."

"Indeed," Revan agreed. "The capital world of the Nihil Empire lies behind another impenetrable curtain. It is a string of planets that spans several systems bordering the capital, relatively new; only a few hundred years old. Its name in their tongue means 'treason wall', and it was constructed with the spirits of traitors to the Empire. From my own experience I know that there exists no way for one not loyal to the Sacred Saint to pass through this Wall."

Atton sighed loudly. "I suppose we have to destroy this one too."

"I am immensely relieved to find I am in the company of such intellect as yours, Rand," Revan gibed sarcastically.

"So you just take Oden, have him do his thing, and blow up some planets. Big deal!" Mira joined in, expecting another unhelpful retort.

Visas was the one to voice the reprimand this time. "Nothing happens the same way twice, Mira. Destroying more planets will not solve this problem."

"You are correct, Visas," Revan confirmed. "It is not the planets themselves we must destroy. Though I know far less of the Treason Wall than I did of the Null field, I believe it may be possible to circumvent its protection."  
"How?" Kuryama asked, speaking for the first time.

"Built as it is on a slightly different plane than ours, the Treason Wall has rules of its own that do not always adhere to our own universe's laws. If something of our reality is bent too far enough it will break, but this is not the case with the Wall; that is how it so easily repels. We will use this nature against it, through the Force we bend it so far that it has no choice but to fold back on itself at its opposite end, and through that gaping hole we will enter the heart of Nihil territory."

"I ask again. How can such a thing be done?"

Revan stared at her. "Only you know the answer to that question."

This silenced her, and Revan knew she could feel the immense weight of responsibility falling once again to her shoulders. Though it was far less than the burden he bore, he still regretted that this duty had to be thrust upon her.

Revan looked around the room, at each pair of eyes looking to him to lead them. "It is for this task we have waited for the arrival of the scattered Jedi and Sith; we will need their help in the coming battle if we are to have any chance to succeed.

"But time grows short. We must leave for the Treason Wall as soon as possible. Kuryama, I leave you in charge of selecting our soldiers. I trust you will find them capable; they are the last of the free Sith and Jedi, the only ones able to escape the many purges. Now it is time for them to be soldiers once more."

* * *

Reluctantly, Lara and Rigel found the _Whitecap_ pressed into service for the mission. Even with one as powerful as Oden as a vanguard, breaking through a Nihil blockade would require as much firepower as they could muster. _Whitecap_ had proven itself a capable ship, and was therefore drafted. The two Talion Hunters were mollified by Revan's promise of compensation, and to his delight, Rigel convinced Mira to fly with them. He was chagrined, however, when Atton somehow got assigned to their ship as well. Mira was a bounty hunter, and so was almost kin to them, but Atton... they could easily have been paid to kill Atton in the past. Rigel knew what he was, and couldn't fathom what he was doing around all the Jedi without having at least one of them on a rack. And worse yet, he was becoming infatuated with Lara. Rigel swore to himself that if Atton made another advance he was going to punch him in the face.

The _Ebon Hawk_ was full up as well. In addition to Kuryama and Visas, Revan, Bastila, Juhani, Jilon, and Norryl were to come on the _Hawk_ as well. Revan didn't trust Norryl or Jilon, but preferred to have them on the same ship rather than let them take their own, and thus allow them to take actions at the other's expense, which would be detrimental to his ends. More importantly, however, they feared him. They feared him enough to obey and go along despite their conflict with each other. He wanted them within his reach at all times. Bastila and Juhani were brought for simpler reasons; they had refused to be left behind again. They left the asteroid base in the capable hands of Revan's Sith lieutenants and a few Jedi, though Revan suspected that there were no reinforcements left to wait for.

The Treason Wall was deep in Nihil territory. The journey was expected to take over two days in hyperspace. So the Jedi, Sith, and assorted others in Revan's small battle group made comfortable; some sleeping, some meditating, and some drinking to pass the time.

After several days of nonstop hostility between the groups of Jedi and Sith, followed by interminable hours of explanation and persuasion, Kuryama was exhausted and retired to the _Ebon Hawk_'s dormitory. She found Visas already asleep. The Miraluka was undoubtedly more exhausted than she, for Visas had never rested during almost the whole time at Revan's stronghold, instead standing guard while Kuryama did.

The ways in which she didn't understand Visas ran through Kuryama's mind until she fell asleep.

* * *

_She wondered why she wasn't trembling, she was usually unable to stop shaking. Visas supposed she'd become numb to the fear over time as Lord Nihilus called for her again and again and again. The only thing she could feel was blind acceptance for what was to come. It was never pleasant in the least bit, always a horror in ways she was unprepared for. But she knew she had absolutely no choice but to comply. The fact that she couldn't understand it only made it all the more terrifying. Nothing about it made sense, the exercise was pointless._

_But he'd never expected her to understand, only obey._

_Perhaps even the Lord of Hunger himself was not above the want of a woman's body._

_Almost from the very beginning, when Lord Nihilus spared her life and made her his slave, he'd commanded her to make love to him. The act was horrifying not because he was brutal to her - though he was not at all affectionate - but because lying with him filled her with nothing but emptiness and a small taste of his aching hunger. For a nightmarish several hours she would feel as he did, and know the true nature of his anger and pain._

_But Visas could only obey. He held her very life in his hands and demanded utter submission in return for his mercy._

_When she was called to his bedchamber, she wore a loose black robe rather than her usual dark red outfit. Her change of dress signified to the sparse crew of Nihilus' ghostly ship Ravager that she was his whore for the night. Visas slipped the robe from her shoulders and stood naked before him when the Dark Lord entered._

_Behind the ivory mask his black gaze roamed across her perfect body, taking in the flawless tone of her skin, the impeccable proportions of her hips, the swell of her chest, the rich dark hair cascading down her shoulders._

_Visas suppressed a shiver at the scrutiny of his unseen eyes._

_Stepping up to her, Lord Nihilus enveloped her in his cloak. A tiny gasp escaped her throat as she felt the coldness of his flesh suddenly against her._

_Somehow, she found herself on the bed. His phantom lips brushed her neck. He whispered to her in that language only she could understand and she obediently slid her hand underneath his white mask, feeling with her fingers the pallid and warmthless face beneath._

_Their bodies intertwined. Once again Visas felt the emptiness crushing down around her as she was locked in passion the one who could never understand love._

_She had given up screaming long ago. It never helped._

Visas did scream. She let a tormented cry from her throat that disturbed the quiet humming that filled the dormitory. The dream had filled her with so much pain it was unbearable, for it was a reflection of the reality of her miserable life as slave to Darth Nihilus. She'd felt that pain more times than she could count. She felt herself breaking down into helpless sobs.

But even through the raw torment left by the vision, she realized what it was that disturbed her so about Darth Oden, why the touch of the Null field had been so familiar to her, and the true danger of the Nihil. She couldn't fathom how she'd been so blind, and only cried the more for being such a fool that she hadn't grasped the importance of those vital pieces in the terrifying puzzle presented to them all.

"Visas, what's wrong?"

Her scream had woken Kuryama. She'd disturbed her Master.

Visas wanted to die.

Softly, Kuryama slid from her bunk and came to sit by Visas. She pushed the black hair away from her worry-creased face as she regarded the distraught Miraluka with her gray-blue eyes. She took the woman's hand comfortingly.

"I'm here, Visas," she said quietly. "What's wrong?"

She felt Visas' grip on her hand tighten, and in the dim light saw her sit up on the bed. Her hair was disarrayed and fell over her face, as if trying to hide her empty eye sockets in the absence of her hood. Kuryama was moved with empathy at the sight of Visas' stricken countenance.

"Master..." Visas attempted, but her voice broke before she could utter another syllable.

Kuryama gently leaned her up against her shoulder and spoke soothingly. "Shhh, now. You're safe."

She was deeply disturbed to see Visas in such a condition. The only time she'd ever come close to being this emotional was when she'd begged to be killed on Dantooine so she wouldn't have to tell her Master that she failed. Her Master had been Darth Nihilus. Kuryama knew she could never truly understand just how terrible serving under Nihilus must have been.

After a little bit, Visas was able to find her voice, though it was unsteady and rang with emotional torment. "Master, they feed on nothing! That is what Revan was telling us!" she managed.

She pulled her head away from Kuryama's shoulder and looked her straight in the eyes. "Oden is one of them. If not in body, in spirit. He has the same power as they do. The Nihil feed on death, on the energy that connects all things dead! Oden's power, their power, the power of the Null field, comes from nothing; from death itself!"

Dreadful realization tugged at Kuryama. She felt a twang of pain from Malachor echo through her and knew Visas spoke the truth.

Abruptly, Visas broke away. "I have disturbed you, Master. I am sorry. I will meditate and leave you to your rest."

Kuryama stared after her as she slipped out of bed and pulled a black robe over herself, making for the main hold. She was starting to understand how Revan felt; the Miraluka was very much an enigma to her. Her hard exterior concealed a core of suppressed suffering, a soul twisted by the hunger of Darth Nihilus.

Visas still had a long way to go before those wounds could be mended.

* * *

The power beckoned to him; aching, burning, demanding to be released. Darth Oden relished in the feeling of it, but regretfully held it down. Unleashing his destructive force now, in the middle of hyperspace, would serve no purpose at all. But still he felt it there, always just beneath the surface, waiting to do his bidding should he call upon it.

He intended to have reason to call on it. When they arrived at their destination, there would be a holocaust of destruction. He hungered for it, craved the rush of the power when it wrought death on a scale unimaginable.

Oden held no empathy for the living, only a bond to the dead. For he was dead, Orann Dalez had died on Malachor V. The memory was still fresh in his mind as if it was only a few seconds old:

_The Republic had landed a large party, techs and scientists mostly, but with a large contingent of armed soldiers and Jedi to escort them to the various sites needed in the experiment. The planet was in a state of panic; the Republic was attempting to organize a covert evacuation and people were everywhere._

_He and General Nari had insisted upon seeing to the preparations involved in the experiment, despite the objections of many on the war council. General Nari cited some vague moral reasons, he, on the other hand, wanted to make sure that only as many people died as a result of the experiment as was absolutely necessary. Dalez believed it could end the war, but didn't want it to go one step beyond that. After all, it could end the war in one of two ways._

_Shortly after arrival, a fierce rain storm hit the area of primary target site. The Malachorian grasslands were reduced to rain-slick, muddy bogs within minutes. Time was of the essence, so no delay was allowed. They moved to the target site regardless._

_Halfway to the site, when the entire company was in the middle of an open field, in the midst of the torrential downpour, the mortars hit._

_The dread whistling of falling shells filled the air and orange explosions blossomed all around. Pillars of black smoke erupted from impact craters where flame-consumed men and equipment sent up the stench of burning rubber, synthetics, and flesh._

_Dalez knew instantly what had happened; they'd been sold out by a traitor._

_He heard General Nari barking out orders as fast as a Twi'lek auctioneer from Nar Shaddaa announced his items. The techs and their equipment had to be protected at all costs. The whole company immediately made for the tree line, some two miles to the west and invisible behind a line of hills. All the while, the mortars dropped with a vengeance, randomly and with few casualties at first but increasing in accuracy with each wave._

_The Force tickled at the corner of his mind, alerting him. A soldier was leaving the group, fleeing in the opposite direction across the field. Out of pure instinct, Dalez launched himself after the soldier. He could feel his apprehension, sense the betrayal as surely as if it had been written across the man's face. With incredible speed he raced after the traitor. He heard General Nari yelling desperately at him but he forced himself to disregard her orders just for this once. There was one chance to stop this traitor and he was going to take it._

_With a final leap, Dalez whipped out his green lightsabre and severed the soldier's head. The body fell to the muddy ground. With a grimace he picked up the head by the hair and flung it as far out into the rain as he could._

_He saw them then. Advancing through the storm was a Mandalorian war battalion in full strength, mortar cannons blasting as they charged, howling feral war cries._

_Dalez knew the wise thing to do. He turned and ran for the trees at the other end of the vast field._

_Explosions were everywhere, tossing mud and grass in his face as he ran. Blinded by the rain, he sensed the way ahead through the Force, but even then he was impaired. The panic and urgency of the Republic escort group desperately trying to make it to the forest was sending out ripples in the Force. He narrowly dodged mortar detonations and skirted around the slippery edges of smoking craters that hissed under the rain in his mad dash to rejoin the others. He could hear General Nari screaming for him over the deafening cacophony._

_His foot suddenly slipped in the mud, and in an instant he was flat on his face, gray from head to toe with the slimy muck. The whistling of incoming mortars filled his ears as he struggled upright. Looking up, he couldn't tell where he was, or in what direction he should running. Desperately, he tried to reach into the Force but found that it had abandoned him. He couldn't see a thing through the wind-driven rain and the mud in his eyes._

_More explosions. He saw them as orange and yellow blurs in the sea of gray that was his field of vision, saw them advancing toward a darker blotch off in the distance. The trees._

_Orann Dalez took a stride and started running._

_Out of nowhere, he heard an earsplitting squeal as a mortar detonated directly behind him. He felt an eruption of pain in his back and saw long jagged pieces of shrapnel hit the surface of mud pools all around him._

_He couldn't take another step. Fierce pain shot through him as he tried just to look down at the sharp piece of debris that had impaled him and severed his spinal cord. Blood gushed from his stomach, dripping in a crimson stream on his muddy robes and to the ground. Everything had fallen oddly silent and he could see General Nari as if she were standing right in front of him. She was still screaming for him, in anguish now._

_Dalez couldn't move his legs, they were frozen in place with the rest of him. It took effort just to blink to try to get the stinging mud from his eyes. It was over, he realized. She had to continue on without him. He tried to raise his arm, to wave her away, to tell her to leave him, but he couldn't. His arm moved only a scant few inches._

_He felt himself overbalancing, unable to correct his unsustainable position. The sight of a mortar crater, full of liquid gray mud, met his eyes, replacing Kuryama's despairing rain-drenched face as the last thing he would ever see._

_He didn't even feel it when he hit the mud and sank like a stone to the bottom of the deceptively shallow crater. The mud filled his lungs and welcomed him into the blackness of death._

The beeping alarm of the hyperspace computer interrupted Oden's wandering thoughts.

With a distinctive jolt, the engines jerked the ship back into normal space. Beside and behind him, the twenty or so ships of Revan's small battle group likewise exited hyperspace. Before them was a sparkling terrestrial world. Wide bands of white clouds drifted over the green continents and sapphire oceans. It looked beautiful enough to be Alderaan's twin.

Oden knew, however, that it hid the essence of the Nihil's obscene creation known as the Treason Wall, the powerful shield around the core of the Nihil Empire. He was fully prepared to lay waste to the planet's beauty if he had to in order to aid Kuryama.

But he wasn't immediately worried about the need to destroy the planet. For drawn in a ring of shimmering steel around the world was a vast fleet of the Nihil's blade-like warships. They opened fire almost instantly, launching a blistering wave of black energy. Oden steeled himself for the impacts and began drawing his power close, compressing it into a blue orb at the front of his ship.

He held his breath in anticipation as the Nihil weapons fire came closer.

Space erupted into a wall of flame.


	6. The Treason Wall

Revan felt the impact slam into him. It jarred his bones and pounded into his mind like seismic wave. His mental barriers protected him from the worst of it, but the effort of holding up the resistance was incredibly draining nonetheless. It took most of his strength just to hold on, but he knew it would be fatal to let go too soon. When it seemed he could hold it back no longer, that he was beyond the limits of his endurance, he not only went on, but pushed back.

In a wide arc before his small battle group, the Nihil weapons fire detonated as the Force snapped into a rigid line of defense. The curtain of explosions was still far enough away that none of his ships suffered any damage.

Revan breathed a quick sigh of relief, suddenly exhausted. Blocking the first wave had taken enormous effort. He would not be able to do it again, not in time to save them.

Up ahead, the curved talons on Darth Oden's ship were building up with a glowing blue pulse of energy. Revan could sense its destructive power seething, eager to be released. In seconds a blue-white orb screamed from the ship with blinding speed, trailing tendrils of blue flame. It tore into the prow of the leading Nihil ship, detonating in a searing flash that sent out blistering shock waves and wicked bolts of dark lightning that arced from ship to ship, gutting them from stem to stern. In the wake of the shock waves came a cloud of blue fire, engulfing yet more ships.

Suddenly, there was a gaping hole in the Nihil blockade. Oden plunged into the breach, already preparing for another attack. Revan signaled all his ships to follow him, and took the _Ebon Hawk_ in after Oden.

Debris from the destroyed ships floated everywhere, catching shots from the surrounding Nihil ships' cannons. The Jedi and Sith ships fired back as they sped along. Red, green, yellow, and black lances of energy criss-crossed the precarious gap in the blockade. A pair of Jedi fighters streaked ahead of the _Hawk_, trailing smoke and fire from direct hits. Revan could feel the pilots screaming just before they crashed into a huge chunk of silver hull.

The _Hawk_'s own blaster cannons roared to life, taking shots at drifting debris and returning fire on the closing Nihil ships and the snub fighters they were deploying into the narrow breach. Though weaker, their weapons' fire was more accurate. Whoever was manning the turret managed to keep them from inflicting serious damage, but not all the other ships were so fortunate.

Four more Jedi ships detonated in searing explosions.

The Nihil ships were rapidly closing the gap, the deadly fire from their cannons getting more precise. In the next minute the Jedi would either be through the blockade or trapped on all sides by the uncountable enemy forces.

The _Hawk_'s shields buckled under a glancing hit from a Nihil capital ship, sending alarms blaring in the cockpit. Revan cursed, knowing they couldn't take even one direct hit from that massive a gun. Up ahead, a line of six frigates and two cruisers had already drawn themselves across the last remaining distance separating them from low orbit.

They opened fire.

No ship in the small battle group escaped harm entirely. Six ships exploded, many were critically damaged, and almost all lost shields.

It was going to be now or never.

A blue-white flash tore from Darth Oden's ship. It ripped into the impeding ships with howling fury, disintegrating huge swathes of the silver starship armor. All eight Nihil ships were at the mercy of scorching wave of blue death. Stripped of their outer skin, they leaked atmosphere like sieves. Bodies and equipment were swept out into the vacuum as the ships floundered and their guns fell silent.

The Jedi battle group streaked past the crippled ships and entered the high atmosphere of the planet below, still dodging fire from the ships above. Revan gave the command to scatter into the clouds, designating a rendezvous point in the hills below. Acknowledgments chattered over the comm as the individual ships vanished into the cloud cover.

It wasn't long before the black cannon fire from the orbiting ships sizzled through the clouds like a deadly hail. Snub fighters screamed down through the atmosphere after them, hounding the _Ebon Hawk_ and the few larger ships still visible.

Revan abruptly plunged the ship into a barrel roll, cutting altitude fast and dipping out of the clouds. The _Hawk_ gained velocity at a sickening rate as it plunged nearly straight down. Anything not tied down was falling around the ship's compartments and Revan had to reach into the Force to control the stomach-lurching vertigo.

In the distance, he caught sight of the rendezvous point; a line of jagged cliffs and smooth hills overlooking a vast green valley.

Suddenly, the fighters disappeared from the sensor screen. Before he could sigh in relief, Revan cursed again as flak fire from ground-based fortifications erupted in the sky around the _Ebon Hawk_. Proximity alarms flashed over the console and he dumped countermeasures into the air.

Sparing some of his concentration for a moment and drawing on strength he knew he would need later, Revan visualized the flak guns below and hit them with a compressed wave of Force distortion. The wave scoured a half-mile-long swathe of utter destruction, wiping three guns out of existence as it tore over the ground, uprooting every last bit of vegetation to a depth of almost three feet.

Missing the three emplacements, the air defense grid was imbalanced, allowing the _Ebon Hawk_ to slip through and make it to the hill line. Their velocity, however, was a problem. Revan roared in the effort as he tried to slow to _Hawk_ in time to dip below the hills and avoid the next system of flak guns that lay dangerously close behind the broken, jagged line of hills and cliffs. The bottom of the ship skidded over treetops as it attempted to shed momentum. Trunks snapped and fell to the floor of the forest below, leaving a trail of crushed foliage behind the speeding freighter.

The ship was slowing, but it wasn't enough. Every second brought them streaking closer to the range of more of the Nihil's deadly guns.

Revan abandoned the ship's controls and reached for the calm center within himself, drawing forth power with all his remaining strength. He closed his eyes and willed the ship to slow. The Force responded and cast itself in a net around the ship. In his mind, Revan grasped the threads and pulled with every ounce of strength he had left.

The whole ship lurched suddenly, as if struck by a massive hammer, and its speed dropped off swiftly. As everything inside the ship was cast into the forward bulkheads with paralyzing force, Revan floated on a cushion of air, immersed in the Force. The _Hawk_'s nose dipped precipitously, scoring deeply into the forest.

There was no stopping it as it barreled into the side of the next hill, burying the forward section ten feet into the sediment.

The toll of stopping the ship had sapped the last of his energy. As the _Ebon Hawk_ came to rest, Revan fell forward and lost consciousness.

* * *

Darth Oden felt Revan and his crew go down several kilometers west of him. He was unconcerned. Revan was one of the most resourceful people in the galaxy, and in the company of several others of comparable skill. A mere crash would never stop him.

Free of pursuers or tracking anti-aircraft fire, Oden wheeled his ship around over the hills, searching for others. They were scattered wide across the landscape. With a grimace, he supposed that they'd fared better than he might have expected; only twelve ships had been lost, not quite half their number. He sensed three of them landed relatively close together and brought his ship down close.

There was no sign of anyone when he landed, the forest was quiet and empty. But underneath the peaceful facade, he could feel the true danger of the planet. Unlike the Relay world, which had bristled with imprisoned Force energy, this world brought a pervasive sense of foreboding. If Oden listened hard enough, he could almost gossamer voices in his ears; the spirits of the Treason Wall whispering to him.

As he walked the deserted forest, searching for the nearest Jedi, the stillness reminded him of a wholly different world; the one where he had been reborn:

_In the void where he floated, time was infinite. He could see nothing through his eyes, hear nothing through his ears, feel nothing from his flesh. He was unable to move; he had no body. He couldn't speak, yet he heard his thoughts echoing around him. He was a tiny point of existence in the vast infinity of the universe, forever alone and without form to give substance to his meaningless being._

_A scream suddenly tore through the empty void. It was as a thousand voices joined into one._

_Though he could feel nothing, the scream seared him with agony and he felt himself being drawn into it. It sucked him in, made him one with its terrible energy, and for an instant he felt its diaphanous connection to life; it was the sound of thousands dying. The pain seemed a comforting relief, the connection he felt a cause for hope._

_And then he could feel everything once again. He woke from death itself._

_The first thing Orann Dalez felt was the dirt; he was buried in it. It filled his mouth, his throat, covered him in layers many feet deep. He couldn't breathe, but that was okay. When he tried to move, he found that the sediment had encased him firmly in its grip, effectively paralyzing him. He wasn't worried, however. With a thought he scoured open the ground, tearing a crater for him to crawl from._

_On his knees, he hacked the dirt from his throat. When he stood, he faced a planet he no longer recognized._

_Malachor V was no more. It had been replaced by a hideous mockery of its former beauty. Gone were the vast green plains, the lush forests, the breathtaking canyons of exquisite wonder, the soaring mountains with their ripe valleys. Everything was reduced to gray rock, black clouds, and a horrifying green incandescence that burst from every crack in the bare ground. The storms for which Malachor was famous still raged, but they brought no rain to the barren land; only flashing lightning and bone-jarring thunderclaps. The sun could not penetrate the thick clouds, casting everything as far as the eye could see into a permanent gloom, illuminated only by the green glow that welled up from cracks and crevices spread out over the ground like gigantic spiderwebs._

_Malachor V was dead, as he was dead. And yet they were both alive._

_Dalez struggled to his feet, mildly aware of a discomforting sensation in his stomach. Looking down, he saw the long, jagged piece of shrapnel still impaled in him. He reached behind and pulled the long shard out of his back, expecting pain--expecting to feel _something_. He felt the metal fragment scraping against bone and pulling past ragged, torn muscle, but there was almost no pain. He stared dumbly at the bloodstained shard for a moment, bringing back his last memories._

_The experiment must have been successful; Malachor lay in shattered ruins, as had been projected. He felt a small amount of relief that his sacrifice had not been wasted. His was a necessary death, it had served a purpose higher than himself._

_A new sensation startled Dalez. He looked down at his wound and saw to his surprise that the torn flesh was knitting itself together. He had done nothing; his injury was healing of its own accord. In the corner of his mind he felt the empty place lurking, that void beyond life from which he had returned. Yet he felt also the familiar presence of the Force. The two presences were in diametric opposition with each other, yet coexisted within him somehow; he was the focal point of both._

_It actually made sense to him. The Force was an energy field that connected all living things; he was Jedi. The other power he felt was death; he was dead also. The experiment had torn the two, twisting the Force into an instrument of death and inescapably tying him to both. He was now a creature of two powers._

_He walked Malachor V's dead surface for days._

_With no destination, he simply plodded forward, taking not so much as a single stop for rest. It seemed as if he could tread the lifeless planet for all of eternity._

Oden was alerted to the presence of a Sith by the whirring and humming of multiple lightsabres and the shrill hissing of Nihil energy blades. He started running and had not far to go before he encountered white-armored Nihil soldiers.

He came upon the first six completely by surprise. They were standing back, observing a flurried battle, when Oden appeared behind them. He jerked both his wrists and instantly his hands were enveloped by a dark blue lightsabre field. Rather than forming the malleable fields into blades, Oden thrust his hands through the backs of two unsuspecting soldiers.

They shrieked as his hands burned clean through their bodies.

Oden locked his fingers rigidly, and the lightsabre energy obediently snapped into twin beams. With quick upward chops of his arms, he bisected the two unfortunate Nihil soldiers.

His blue blades became a blur as he turned on the other four soldiers. They fired desperately at him but his sabres found them all.

Darth Oden then turned back to the battle that had drawn his attention in the first place. It was a Sith Marauder by his looks and combat style, engaged with three Nihil. His twin red sabres were occupied by the Nihil's own black energy blades, and they were proving skillful fighters.

Rather than waste time by fighting them, Oden clicked off his lightsabres with another jerk of his wrists and raised his hands toward his enemies, summoning another power from the void. Twin streams of blue flame leaped from his hands and screamed at the three Nihil with lethal purpose. It boiled through the air, singeing leaves and branches on its way before splashing in their midst, avoiding the lone Sith.

Horrible shrieks rose from the three masked soldiers as they were engulfed by the sticky blue fire. Melting armor plates and burning flesh sent a caustic odor into the air as the fire consumed the Nihil.

Seeing him, the Sith dropped to his knees before Darth Oden, bowing his head. "I am at your command, Master Oden. My name is Rydak Tyll, my blades are yours."

Oden approached slowly, regarding the man in a detached manner. He was well-built for his small frame, he handled his lightsabres with powerfully-muscled arms and articulate hands. He also had a strong presence in the Force, indicating great power within him. An ally indeed.

"Get up," he ordered Rydak, "we have others to find."

* * *

Neither Lara or Rigel could believe their luck when they found a cave in the side of one of the cliffs large enough to hide the _Whitecap_ in. If Revan was correct and this march of hills was indeed a dead zone in the Nihil's defensive grid, then there would likely be scads of the white-armored soldiers swarming the land in very short order. Landing their ship in any of the natural clearings was sure to be a dead giveaway.

The most important thing now was to regroup. The _Whitecap_'s illegally-modified sensors had tracked all the surviving ships as they went down, one way or another, to the hills. Revan and the _Ebon Hawk_ had crashed several miles away, with a smattering of the smaller Jedi ships between them.

They all got busy fastening on their equipment. Lara availed herself of a pair of blaster pistols with hip holsters and slung an ion rifle over her back along with a pack full of explosive devices of every variety, detonators and other small electronics were clipped to her belt, and a short vibrosword she strapped against her thigh. Atton pulled a shoulder holster over his shirt and stuffed in a pair of blaster pistols, a vibrosword and yet another blaster shared space on his belt along with a small assortment of grenades. Mira was, as always, the same walking arsenal of mini-rockets, conspicuous blasters, concealed blades, and explosives heavy enough to scar starship armor. Rigel contented himself with an even more massive rifle than Lara carried, a pack heavy with extra weapons, and two crossed bandoliers and a belt full of yet more explosives.

Lara led the way with her tracking instruments, following the _Ebon Hawk_'s energy signature with the pirate equipment.

They had a lot of ground to cover. All the ships had been in unbelievable haste to get to ground immediately to avoid being caught by Nihil patrols of the supposed 'dead zone', leaving them spread out all across the area.

It wasn't long before they noticed passing patrol ships casting ominous shadows over the forest as they hiked, trying to stay out of sight. The Nihil were on full alert, hunting them ruthlessly from the air and the ground. But the four of them managed to remain undetected, largely thanks to Lara's pirate devices.

As they moved through a relatively sparse section of the forest, her sensors picked something up; Nihil ground troops in the immediate vicinity of one of the downed ships they were after.

"You two can shoot, right?" Rigel asked Atton and Mira. They both fixed him with withering scowls which he took as yeses. "Where are they, Lara?" he asked his Twi'lek companion.

"Straight ahead. They're clustered around one of the ships," she responded.

"So let's take them," Mira suggested. "A generous serving of explosives and they'll be ripe pickings, don't you think?"

"Well, we certainly have enough to do the job," Atton replied, trying not to be caught staring at Lara while he assessed their armaments. "Besides," a sly grin came to his face, "I could use a straight fight after all this sneaking around."

Rigel clapped him on the shoulder. "Let's go then!"

Pulling out their guns, the four of them crept forward through the trees. The terrain dipped slightly, giving them a good view of the landing site where the Nihil soldiers were gathered. there were almost thirty of them assembled around what looked to have been a hard landing.

Lara tossed a concussion grenade the instant they came within sight. She cursed as it bounced off a tree and exploded prematurely instead of in the middle of the group. A few were caught by the blast, but the element of surprise was ruined. The rest of the white-armored soldiers turned to face them and opened fire.

The four of them dove for cover as black energy bolts sizzled through the air they had been standing in only moments before. Rigel and Atton wasted no time firing back with their own blasters, peppering the Nihil soldiers with well-aimed shots. Mira fired off a few mini-rockets, a direct hit blowing an enemy into pieces. Lara chucked more grenades, this time hitting their mark and taking out substantial numbers.

Howling in rage, the Nihil charged them.

Lara crashed her boot into the closest one's face, cracking the white mask with her heel before whipping out her short vibrosword and stabbing him through the chest. They were carrying what appeared to be long ivory blades, and they swung them with deadly skill. At the very least, however, they did not have the terrifying black energy swords they were starting to be known for for.

Rigel didn't bother with a vibrosword, he just gunned down any soldier at point-blank range with his rifle. Shattered armor, blood, and bone flew as the Nihil charged ahead regardless of their casualties.

One caught Atton in the ribs with its milky white blade, drawing blood. He yelled in pain and discharged his blaster into the side of its face. Half of its head was blown off, showering him in blood.

Angrily, he drew his vibrosword and hacked off the leg of the next one who came at him. As it fell to the ground, he ruthlessly pegged it in the head with the blaster still in his other hand even as he rose to yet another threat. He fell easily into the role of a butcher, putting the blade where it would inflict the maximum damage at minimum risk to himself. With his powerful swings, his vibrosword shattered ivory blades, ate through white armor, and cut mercilessly into flesh.

He felt disturbingly refreshed to be covered in someone else's blood again. That thought sickened him.

Unexpectedly, the fight was over.

Atton saw Mira, Lara, and Rigel casting him odd looks. He realized he was still yelling and clamped his mouth shut.

Lara shook her head at him. "I'm going to check the ship," she announced, and edged away from Atton.

Atton frowned after her. "What's her problem?"

Mira shrugged. "Oh, I'm sure she hates you, Atton."

"Oh, that's funny," Atton snapped sarcastically. "Almost as funny as your excuse for my jacket 'mysteriously' disappearing."

"Well, what would I do with such a piece of trash?" Mira retorted. "Honestly, Atton, you've got a lousy taste in fashion."

"I hate you."

"Will you both shut up!" Rigel protested. Atton and Mira turned identical scowls on him.

Lara called out from the ship. "There's nothing here. He must have left."

The other three shuffled quickly up to the ship. It was little more than a starfighter, and it was indeed empty. There was an ominous spiderweb pattern on the cockpit glass and bloodstains on the seat, but no pilot.

Mira raised a suspicious eyebrow. "Left? You think he walked away from this?"

Lara tossed her _lekku_ over a shoulder in agitation. "Well, he certainly isn't here/"

Rigel ignored the two women and looked among the Nihil corpses. To his luck, he found one still moving. "Get over here," he called to Atton, who reluctantly left the discouraging sight of the empty ship.

"What is it?"

Rigel kicked the slowly stirring Nihil. "Get some answers out of this guy."

Atton's frown grew questioning. "How do you expect me to do that?"

Rigel reached into his pack and pulled something out. "This might help." He held it out to Atton, who recoiled from it as if it were a Kaminoan sea serpent.

"I don't know what you're getting at," Atton responded evasively.

"Come on, Atton," Rigel said, "I know you know your way around this stuff."

Atton was becoming increasingly agitated, looking uneasily at the thin, white vibrorod Rigel was trying to give him.

"Can you please start making sense?" he objected.

Rigel whistled to himself and shook his head. "Great Tusken teeth, he actually doesn't remember us. Lara you tell him."

Lara crossed her armored arms. "We know you used to do this for the Sith, Rand. You were one of our first assignments. We were supposed to kill you."

Before Atton could even begin to react, Mira had her blasters trained on Lara and Rigel. Her voice was easy and collected, but carried an undercurrent of deadly threat.

"Don't either of you say another word or even think about moving. I didn't get to be the best bounty hunter on Nar Shaddaa by being ignorant. You two are Lara Mich and Rigel Salo. Did you know that there are dozen bounties on your heads?"

* * *

Revan tasted blood in his mouth. That was odd, he didn't remember crashing up against anything in the impact. It didn't really matter, though, he could already tell he was not seriously hurt. His strength was partially recovered, but raw unconsciousness was no substitute for actual sleep; he was still dangerously drained.

He pried himself from the pilot's seat and looked about the cockpit. The ship was almost pitch black. The internal lights were all out, and smashed into the side of a hill as the ship was, the cockpit windows were clogged with sediment. But he could nevertheless see his surroundings through the Force. Stuff of every sort had been thrown forward in the crash, and it had scattered over the floor of the cockpit and the short hallway leading back to the main hold. That was to be expected. Crashes tended to destabilize things.

Starting in the back of his mind and working its way inexorably through his consciousness was the feeling that something was terribly wrong. Revan recognized a cue from the Force when he felt it, but this time he was unable to determine its nature.

He trudged into the main hold and found Juhani sprawled over the center table. She was still breathing steadily, but looked to have sustained several injuries. Jedi Knight Jilon lay up against the forward bulkhead, also breathing but with blood running down the side of his head. Revan stirred their minds awake with a gentle nudge of the Force and continued through the ship. They were Jedi, and could take care of themselves.

Blond-haired Norryl was prone in the cargo hold, with only minor injuries. Revan woke her and went on.

Where was Bastila? His mind reeled momentarily at considering the possibility that she might have been lost during the crash, had she been on the gun turrets. He quickly banished the thought from his mind. Kuryama might have manned the turrets, but not Bastila; it wasn't her way. It had to be, she just couldn't be dead.

No, he thought, he would have felt it through the Force had she died. He had at least that comfort.

He finally did find her, to his immense relief. Oddly, she was lying halfway down the open ramp at the back of the ship. When he rushed to her side, he saw bruises on her face that had not come from the crash. They were the livid marks of hard knuckles. Rage boiled up inside him.

Bastila came awake at his touch, groaning in pain. Almost without thought, he started to heal her. She caught his hand and pulled herself into a sitting position to look him in the eye. Even behind heavy bruising, the slight smile she gave him nearly took his breath away.

"Save your strength, Calum, I will be fine."

Revan smiled back and hugged her.

"I'm sorry, Revan," Bastila said as she pulled away.

"For what?"

"They took her, I couldn't stop them."

The nagging sense of wrongness exploded anew through Revan's mind.

"What? Who?"

Bastila pulled herself to her feet and stared out into the forest. "I don't know who they were, but they boarded the ship soon after we crashed. I don't know how I managed to come awake, but I saw them. I tried to stop them, but..." she touched her face, tentatively feeling the purple marks there.

"Revan, they took Kuryama and Visas."


	7. Pilgrimage

"What do you mean 'gone'?"

"Admiral, sir, I mean gone when I say it. There is nothing left on Talmar. The entire colony was wiped out, sir."

Republic Rear Admiral Onasi winced at the news. Talmar was the third colony they'd lost in two days.

It had all begun so fast: The _Wilderness_ had barely reported in with desperate news of an unknown enemy attacking Mortear III, when six other systems came under simultaneous attack. The enemy fleets were larger and more terrifying than anything Onasi had ever seen. All six systems fell within hours. The enemy didn't bother landing ground troops to subdue the planetary militias, they simply bombed every military and government position from orbit and the planets were quick to capitulate. The Republic hadn't heard back from any of them.

Now, it seemed, they were finished accepting surrenders. The Republic Mid-Rim colonies of Hadad and Reeches had recently been cleansed of all life. Now Talmar had joined those lifeless planets. Not a soul survived whatever the enemy had unleashed on those worlds

Carth was tired of being in this situation, where all seemed lost before he could begin to fight back. With the Republic so weak, he didn't think they even could fight back. Worse still, they had almost no time. The enemy was not taking the same approach as had the Mandalorians or the Sith, who had slowly worked their way inward from the Outer Rim. This new enemy was skipping vast swathes of Republic space to hit the most crucial worlds, ignoring thousands of lesser systems to bite deeper and with more teeth.

Desperation reaped desperate measures, but Carth was afraid that after the Mandalorians and the Jedi Civil War, the Republic had played its last hand. The Jedi long gone, they were more vulnerable than ever.

"Alright. Thank you, Captain. Dismissed."

He wasn't going to stop fighting, not for one moment, but he knew that he was at the end of his rope. His fleet orbiting Telos was the largest the Republic could muster; two capital ships, eight cruisers, ten frigates, and fifteen gunboats. The rest of their forces were being drawn in a line around the Core Worlds. But, realistically, there was very little they could do if the enemy struck again.

And they would strike again. Of that there was no doubt.

Carth cursed to himself and looked out over the fleet. He'd recalled patrols from all over the galaxy to have a force this large, and it was still a fraction of full strength. It wasn't fair that it had come down to this again; he'd already fought this same battle twice before. He doubted he'd be able to do it again.

* * *

Visas awoke with a gasp, struggling to control a wave of panic. She was lying naked on a cot beneath a long cloak and with a smooth mask covering her face. With effort, she forced down the horrors that tried to overcome her, memories of the terrors inflicted on her. Gradually, her racing heartbeat slowed and she read her surroundings through the Force.

Lying on a cot beside her was Kuryama, her master. Visas could have sobbed with relief that Kuryama was uninjured.

Again, terror threatened to erupt inside her when she felt three other presences, like a set of identical ripples, which resonated in the Force the same way Lord Nihilus had. They seemed like they could be kin to the Dark Lord.

Without fully knowing what she was doing, but with the knowledge that she had to protect Kuryama, Visas leapt upright, casting off the hated mask. The three figures started in confusion, and she punished them for their laxity. She rammed her elbow into the nearest one's dull gray mask, whipped around and drove a foot into his stomach and kneed him in the face. She didn't stop to think about anything as she took them on, grabbing the second by his arm and wrenching it all the way around until bone popped audibly. As he fell, she slammed a foot into his groin and jumped for the third, clamping her hands around his throat.

Visas and the drab-robed figure crashed to the floor. Her knee was in his stomach and her hands around his neck, crushing his windpipe. He made no attempt to fight back, just flailed his arms and made pitiful choking sounds from his alien throat.

"Visas, stop."

Kuryama's command rang clear with authority through the fog of Visas' mind. She instantly pulled her fingers from the man's neck and jumped to her feet. Kuryama was sitting on the edge of a second bed, naked as was Visas, an identical black cloak and silver mask lying to one side of her.

Standing over the one whose arm she'd broken, Visas leaned viciously on the injured limb, causing the man to cry out in pain. "Where are the Master's robes?" she whispered venomously.

Behind the drab mask, the man started to speak. Visas was thunderstruck to hear the arcane tongue of her former master coming from his lips, begging her to stop hurting him. She took her foot from his arm and answered in the old language.

"_Tell me where the Master's robes are or I will hurt you much more than this._"

Desperately, the man told her; their clothes were underneath the beds.

Satisfied, Visas lifted all three of them with the Force and hurled them through an open doorway. She took her first good look around.

A room of bare gray rock walls, it was larger than the dormitory on the _Ebon Hawk_, but not much larger. It held only the two small cots and a single piece of furniture in one corner. There were no windows, and the light came from glowing lightbanks along the perimeter of the wall and ceiling.

Visas reached under the beds for their clothes while Kuryama frowned at her. The first thing she did was pull her hood over her nonexistent eyes. She hated that she had let Kuryama see them. Just for once, Visas shut out her Force sight, so she wouldn't have to see her Master's disapproval. She was relieved by the simple familiarity of her black and red robes. Putting them on was like greeting an old friend. At least, it was what she supposed it must be like, as she had never had any friends.

"Why did you do that, Visas?" Kuryama asked as she pulled on her undergarments.

"My life for yours, Master. I will protect you to my dying breath."

Kuryama donned her signature gray garments with surprising speed. "But they meant us no harm, Visas. I could feel that much from them."

"I did not have the luxury of such inspection, Master. I acted as I must if I expect to keep harm from you."

Dressed, Kuryama leaned over to lace on her boots. "There was another reason, wasn't there?"

Visas looked away.

"Visas, it wasn't the noise that woke me. Through the Force I felt you in a helpless panic. You don't have to tell me anything, but I need to know if you're alright."

She briefly considered telling Kuryama of those most personal horrors to which she'd been subjected by Darth Nihilus, but quickly rejected the thought. Her Master had enough to worry about; Kuryama needn't concern herself over her.

"I am sorry, Master. For a moment, I thought I could feel my old master. I will be more attentive in the future."

She heard Kuryama sigh in acceptance.

Only when she slipped her lightsabre on its short chain around her wrist did Visas feel secure once more.

Kuryama and Visas heard the sound of footsteps from beyond the doorway. They turned to see four figures in dark blue robes and gray masks. Their smoothly symmetrical masks were similar in design to those worn by the Nihil; which were themselves eerily close in appearance to the one which hid the face of Darth Nihilus. But they were different from the Nihil and the Dark Lord in that the eyes and mouths of the wearers were visible, instead of a black pall looming behind the faceless mask.

These four were smaller and thinner than the ones before. The lead one spoke in a soft voice, a feminine voice.

"_We have done you no harm. Please do us none?_"

"_Who are you?_" Visas asked, keeping a firm grip on her lightsabre and shielding Kuryama from the perceived threat with her body.

"_We..._" the masked woman spread her arms."_We are those who remain, the descendants of those who did not join with the servants of the Saint in his empire. I am Kess. My sisters are Myr, Siv, and Kal. We are slaves allowed to live only because we tend to the spirits of the Wall; the Saint's servants cannot, only we can._"

Visas drew back in puzzlement.

"You understand them?" Kuryama asked.

"Yes, Master. My old master spoke in a dialect very much the same as this, and he required me to understand him. I had little choice, and was forced to learn."

"What did they say to you?"

Visas translated.

"Please ask them why they took us from our companions." Visas immediately repeated Kuryama's question to the one named Kess.

"_We sensed you, and knew the Rayaj would come for you. They would torture and enslave you, or bind your souls into the Wall, because you are similar to them. You have both felt the intimate touch of the power only they can wield, but are heathens who do not follow the path of the Saint,_" Kess answered.

Listening to Visas' interpretation, Kuryama formed her next question. "Who are the Rayaj?"

"_Enforcers of the Saint's will. They are a high caste within the empire, and have nearly unlimited power. They cast lightning and fire from their hands, and it is believed they can destroy an enemy's mind with a single thought. Those of us they cannot enslave they hunt down and kill, for we, too, are similar to them but not of them. We resisted the Old Revolutions, when the Saints of old took power over the empire. We cast ourselves out from the rest of the people to live by ourselves, but the Rayaj would not suffer us to exist without their domination._"

"If you are slaves to the Rayaj and the servants of the Saint," Kuryama said, fingering her lightsabre, "then why did you not leave Visas and I for them to discover? Why did you take us here?"

The four masked women talked animatedly amongst themselves in low voices before Kess answered. "_We hate the Rayaj and all the servants of the Sacred Saint. Though they hold us as slaves, for us to do our work they must give us a small degree of liberty. We have used this limited freedom to aid you because the Saint's servants fear you and believe you capable of bringing harm to their empire. There is nothing we wish for more fervently than to be free of their dominion. Thousands of years ago, they first began oppressing us because we did not share their views of the Force as our everlasting oppressor, like they preached. We saw its true nature; that it was no more evil than the other mechanisms by which our ancestors were dominated. Their machines caused terrible suffering, but they were not evil. How then could the Force be evil? It was only another tool of oppression, and perhaps as much a victim as we were._

"_You are creatures of the Force. We are not. And you may yet be able to free the spirits of the Wall._

"_The Wall was formed from our brothers and sisters, and all those deemed traitors to the Saint's empire, simply because they did not submit to the beliefs of the greater whole. To the Sacred Empire, differing beliefs are treason. Our people were hunted to near extinction for it._

"_But if you are able to destroy the Wall of Treason, the Saint's homeworld of Malayvin will be vulnerable. There are some of us who have waited generation upon generation for this opportunity. They would lay down their lives to aid you and rend apart the Sacred Empire. We are yours._"

Then, to Kuryama's disbelief, they all fell to their knees, touching their masks to the floor in reverence.

* * *

Revan blocked the regret from his mind as the deafening explosion rocked the forest for miles around. The hillside erupted in gigantic gouts of flame, tossing dirt and rubble hundreds of feet into the air and over the surrounding countryside. Chunks of burning debris, melted and twisted by the intense heat, were hurled into the trees, snapping small trunks and setting fires in the immediate area.

At first he was skeptical that the damaged torpedo they'd salvaged would even detonate and be sufficient to destroy the crippled ship, but he was proven wrong. The blast had completely obliterated the once-faithful ship and left nothing intact that was larger than a swoop bike's fin.

As the others - Bastila, Juhani, Jilon, and Norryl - were transfixed by the violent funeral pyre of the deceased ship, Revan turned his gaze into the thick forest. He could sense the other Jedi and Sith much farther into the trees. They were already forming into small groups, seeking strength in ever more concentrated numbers.

They needed to gather as one, and continue on despite the loss of the two most important individuals.

Revan didn't know if success was possible without General Nari and the Miraluka, but he'd brought the Jedi here, and had to lead them regardless. Now that they were here, he had to get them out of the forest, and into far greater danger, towards the Temples of Sacrifice that lay in the valley beyond the hill line.

"We've wasted enough time here, we have to go now," Revan urged the silent four. One by one, they reluctantly turned away from the dead ship and headed with him back into the trees.

"The others are not far," said blond-haired, pale-skinned Norryl. "I can sense them. They have been gathering into groups of their own. Some of them may have heard the blast, but I suspect the Nihil will be quicker to investigate. We should be on guard."

"I agree with Norryl," Juhani responded in her musical voice.

Norryl's words proved prophetic. Not fifteen minutes into the forest they encountered a large contingent of Nihil soldiers, a dozen blade-bearers among them. There was no way to sneak around them, and the faceless, white-armored soldiers had already detected them.

There was nothing for it but to stand and fight.

Before the masked men could open fire and fill the forest with screaming black fire, Norryl unleashed a killing web. Branching red lightning, crackling with deadly power, shot from her fingertips and tore into the approaching enemy. Eight Nihil soldiers were reduced to ash within seconds by her attack.

As they returned fire, the Jedi ignited their lightsabres in an instant to deflect the barrage of black energy bolts while Norryl struck again with her destructive power. She hurled a wave of Force distortion at the leading troops, rending them into pieces smaller than the dead leaves on the forest floor. Blood soaked the ground as the Nihil charged forward, black energy blades igniting in their ranks.

Moments before they met the Nihil's charge, Revan looked briefly into Bastila's eyes. She needed no urging; she had already begun to sink into the Force. It was in her eyes as she gave him a silent, loving, but stern admonishment to face the battle ahead. They exchanged a brief nod of the head that conveyed so much more.

Revan wasted no time. From inside his cloak, he produced a pair of identical red blades. As he plunged himself into the fray, he could already the effects of Bastila's power overcoming him.

He sliced into the first three almost without thought; he barely noticed the severed limbs and bisected bodies that fell before his sabres. His mind was inundated by a righteous drive, impelling him to succeed, making him stronger than ever. At the same time he could feel the resolve of his enemies weakening. Revan was smiling as he tore through another five without much effort.

Further within the Nihil swarm, Norryl was a wind of death. Her lightsabre never touched her hands; she didn't need its assistance to wreak incredible slaughter. Force waves erupted from her hands, lightning danced from her long, swirling hair and raked from her fingers. She seized Nihil soldiers, alive or dead, with the Force and used them as flail weapons against the others, often forcing the blade-bearers to slice open their own comrades.

Her miserable orange eyes glowed with an unnatural fire. Dark veins on her pale face stood out sharply in the flashes shooting from her fingers. She never slowed her attack, not for one instant, while the power took its toll on her body, draining ever more color and substance from her flesh.

Several yards away, Jilon was engaged with the blade-bearers. He was swift with the lightsabre, blocking thrusts and pressing his attack with calm thoroughness. Bastila's power washed through him as it did the others. It made him feel invincible, as if he could do anything. Three of the snarling, masked attackers could not force him to give ground. He cut into their defenses and evaded their black blades at every turn.

Juhani was a feral death machine in the midst of the Nihil contingent. She used her blue lightsabres to maximum effect in confluence with the rest of her body in acrobatic leaps and quick rolls which devastated her enemies.

Against the power of the Jedi and Bastila's battle meditation, the Nihil were soon killed to a man. Over fifty of the white-armored soldiers lay dead on the ground, most in more than one piece.

Revan looked around at his companions. None had suffered any serious injuries, but Norryl looked more haggard than ever. Cautiously, he walked up to her and asked to inspect her wounds. She made no protests and he gently touched a hand to her forehead.

He was completely unprepared for the pain he felt inside her. It was a pain she inflicted upon herself, an agony of the soul stemming from a past experience that she tenaciously clung to even for all the misery it caused her. Norryl was fueling her Force powers with her own life force.

She was on a death quest, Revan realized. She wanted to die, but die fighting with all her strength.

He couldn't let her die. Not yet. He still needed her.

Remorseful that he had to prolong her suffering, Revan let his Force powers regenerate Norryl's body, restoring tissue and muscle that she'd sacrificed for her destructive powers. When he was finished, her skin was still pale and her eyes still orange, but she was no longer skeletal and withered.

A single tear welled from Norryl's eye when he pulled away.

"I'm sorry," Revan whispered.

She tossed her hair back and crossed her arms. "What is your command, my lord?"

"We gather the Jedi."

It took less than ten minutes for the first group to find them.

* * *

"So maybe a few of you would like to come clean?"

There was no question as to who was in charge. Mira had firmly placed herself in authority, with the aid of her ready arsenal, and held the Talion Hunters literally at her mercy.

"Okay," Lara started, "the deal is, Atton here is Jaq Rand, the most successful Sith apostle there ever was. The Jedi knew just how dangerous he was and sent us off to kill him. Only we weren't successful. He wasn't on Korriban when we arrived there and some teenaged snot blew our cover in less than two days. The only thing we were able to salvage from that mission to get us our pay was rescuing a couple Jedi prisoners."

Mira raised her eyebrow, but otherwise didn't react. "Atton? You have anything you want to say?"

Atton's scowl seemed to envelope his whole face. "Not really. I've gone through the whole confession thing with Kuryama already. That's a part of my life that's over and done. But I'll tell you what I told her: Jaq is dead, and I will _never_ be him again." He glared balefully at Rigel. "So if you want someone tortured, do it yourself."

Rigel shrugged. "Okay, no harm no foul. We got paid for that assignment anyway, so we're not in the market for you anymore. Otherwise we'd have shot you on sight."

"How very comforting."

Lara looked hopefully to Mira, who still held them at gunpoint. "This is what we do, Mira. People pay us for justice when they can't get it from the Republic. You're a bounty hunter; you know how life is. Rigel and I aren't holding any grudges, we just do our jobs. I'm sure you can understand."

Slowly, Mira's blasters came down. "Yeah, I guess I do understand. I actually know a lot about you two. That's why I never took up on any of your bounties; because I knew the kinds of things you do and what you are. I heard about your assassination of that Ilonian dictator, and that time when you wrecked the Exchange drug shipments into the Devrita sector. To be honest I felt cheered at that news.

"But I don't want to hear any more death threats from either of you, or I'll put a pair of shots through your heads before you can blink."

"Don't worry," Lara replied, "we're not--"

Out of nowhere, she was struck in the face by a flying blade.

Lara fell to the ground screaming in pain as the others ducked to avoid more of the deadly projectiles hurled by a group of Nihil who came charging in from all sides. Mira lit up her blasters and gunned down two with a single burst. Atton winced as one of the razor-sharp knives nicked his arm and punished his attacker by taking off his head with an overcharged rifle blast.

As suddenly as the attack had come, it was over. There had been no more than six Nihil, and not one of them had fired a shot; but they had done their damage.

Mira kept her blasters out and her eyes peeled at the surrounding forest as Atton crouched down next to Rigel, who was holding Lara in his arms, trying futilely to stem the river of blood flowing from the horrible wound in her skull. The blade had wedged in her left cheekbone just behind her eye and sliced her cheek open as it poked into her jaw. Her blood was everywhere, and Rigel's frantic, misguided efforts to remove the knife only made things worse.

Atton yanked the man's bloody hands away from his Twi'lek companion's ravaged face. "Stop it! You're only making it worse and you're going to kill her!"

"But I can't let her die!"

Both men glared at each other. Atton, in helplessness; Rigel, in sudden, unreasoned hatred.

They both were caught by a sound coming from Lara. Through the blood pooled in her throat and mouth, she managed to get out in a whisper, "I'm... sorry, Rigel..." Suddenly, she was racked by a heaving cough. Blood, saliva, and stomach fluids erupted from her throat. Her convulsions stopped.

Lara lay dead in Rigel's arms.

"The Force burn you for this, Revan!" he cried bitterly. "This is all your fault for bringing us here!"

Atton left Rigel to his grief and went up to Mira, who was now carefully scanning every tree. "What is it?"

Mira shook her head. "Something's different. I'm not sure what, but I think we need to get out of here."

Atton glanced back uncomfortably to Rigel cradling his dead friend's bloody head in his arms in anguish. "I don't think he's going anywhere. I'm no expert, but I'd say he and she were a lot closer to each other than simply partners on the job."

"I know," Mira sighed. "They've been through a lot together. The Republic ought to have been pinning medals on their chests for all the things they've done instead of hunting them like the murderers they kill." A sudden noise riveted her attention. "Get him moving, Atton. We need to leave right now. I think whoever took this Jedi from his ship is coming back."

"How do you--?" Atton began, but he could feel it himself; hungry anticipation riding on the air like a repugnant odor. The fine hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Mira holstered her blasters and brought to hand a stripped-down, modified version of a light Mandalorian repeater rifle.

Atton grabbed Rigel's shoulder. "She's dead, Rigel! There's nothing you can do! We have to get out of here now or she died for nothing!"

Rigel glared up at him. "She believed in you, Rand. I don't know why, but she did." He let go of Lara and got to his feet. He picked up a broken fragment of a Nihil's mask. "Wherever we get to next, I am going to kill everything that wears this mask."

After retrieving Lara's equipment and distributing the supplies between themselves, Rigel left his dead friend with a full belt of plasma grenades that had been wired together. As they hurried from the scene of the battle, Rigel activated a tiny device that had been wedged inside her belt buckle.

Red and orange fire exploded behind them, turning the trees and ground into an inferno that consumed the scattered bodies.

Lara's funeral pyre.

* * *

_Malachor V, in all its horrible ugliness, had a seductive charm. Its shattered surface like a celebration of death was welcoming and familiar. He had long ago lost track of the number of days he'd spent in nothing else but walking the planet, immersing himself in what it meant to be dead but alive. It was a joy he shared with the devastated world._

_He had forgotten his own name, for it no longer held any meaning for him. He was no longer that man; that man was dead. His rebirth had fundamentally changed him, made him someone else entirely. Inside him, he could feel always the presence of that great void, the nothingness of death, and he began to draw comfort from it. Like the Force, he realized, it was an energy field, and it now lived in him, forging an irrevocable connection between him and death._

_The Force was not alone in binding the galaxy together. It had a counterpart, a second nature, an opposite. As the Force connected every living thing, the power of the void he felt connected all things dead._

_As he walked along, stepping carefully over crevices from which poured the incandescent green light, he saw someone. A robed figure knelt on the hard ground, uttering strange, oddly compelling words he'd never heard before and could not understand. He stopped in front of the kneeling figure, taking in the black robes, cowled head, and most strikingly, the white and red mask that covered his face. There were eye- and mouth-holes, but nothing was visible behind the mask, only darkness. And yet, he knew without a doubt that the stranger was looking directly at him._

_He felt no fear at the inscrutable gaze, only a sense of kinship. This man belonged here, on the dead planet; he could feel that much. The masked man had no presence in the Force, save for his sheer lack of presence. He was like a whirlpool where one expected a serene lake, a thing defined only through its lack of definition._

_He heard again the man speak in his alien tongue, addressing him. Though he couldn't understand the words, he could almost grasp at their deeper meaning. The sounds were so familiar, yet so distant and obscured._

_One word, however, stood out from the others. The masked man spoke the word 'oden' to him, and he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he had been assigned a new name. Whatever the meaning of the word, he knew it was appropriate._

_He stared one last time at the kneeling figure, the masked man devoid of the Force, and continued on._

The connections formed by memory finally made sense to Darth Oden. He was kin to the Nihil; if not in flesh, in spirit. They existed outside of the Force because they were bound into death, much as he was. The slave uprisings against the Rakatan Empire that ended in the destruction of worlds had had much the same effect as the experiment on Malachor V, but the consequences were far greater. Entire races had become as he was; inextricably connected to the energy of death and yet still living.

His difference was that he was Jedi where they were not. He had command of the Force where those uncounted billions had never been touched by it save for when they were dominated by those who did command it.

But there was one other whom he still did not understand. A pilgrim, perhaps, from beyond the Null field, who had somehow gained a connection to the Force. There could be no doubt, the Lord of Hunger was of the Nihil. Everything Oden remembered from their brief encounter with each other attested to that fact. He wore their mask, spoke their language, resonated the same auras, and had their powers. And yet he, like Oden, could also wield the Force.

He felt the two generals close by; he was nearly upon them. The scattered Jedi and Sith were gathered again. To his surprise, he sensed a large host accompanying Kuryama. Even more surprisingly, they resonated with the all-too familiar echo of whirlpools.

It didn't matter, Darth Oden decided. Soon enough there would be answers.


	8. The Endless Feed

Rigel had been silent ever since committing Lara's body to the flames. After a few abortive attempts, neither Atton nor Mira even tried to engage him in conversation, choosing to let him simmer by himself. For their part, they weren't in the mood for talking either. Mira drove them relentlessly from the crash site where Lara had died, able to cite only that she felt something wrong. Atton couldn't argue with her because he could feel it himself.

Like something stretched nearly to the breaking point, the whole forest seemed to be holding its breath in anticipation. But of what, they could only guess.

The sudden squawking of the comlink followed by Revan's authoritative voice was startling to the extreme. "Alright, talk to me, Mira, Rigel, anyone of you. What's your position?"

Mira quickly adjusted the volume and radioed back. "Close to linking up with you. We're about half a mile from intercept point."

"Good. I think you should know that there's been a few developments on our end."

"I'm not surprised. We've had a few of our own. Lara's dead."

"One of the bounty hunters?"

"Yes."

There was a long pause.

"Well, that certainly isn't what I wanted to hear."

"I know. Rigel isn't happy about it either."

"Ok, listen. You get here as fast as you possibly can. There's no way I can explain this to you, but you are being hunted by two of the Nihil's deadliest disciples. They are more powerful than a Jedi and more heartless than the bleakest assassin droid. You must not let them catch you!"

It was the first time Mira had heard such consternation in Revan's voice. He sounded afraid.

"We're on our way."

* * *

The forest thinned as the company of Jedi left the hills behind. There were twenty-five Jedi total, fifteen of them Sith who had served a number of Dark Lords. As Revan and Kuryama had made clear from the beginning, there were no longer allegiances between them that mattered. Jedi and Sith alike stood to lose everything, as did everyone in the galaxy if the Nihil succeeded. When the galaxy was subjugated, the Nihil would eventually kill the Force, and then anyone and everything touched by the life of the Force would die. Even the small percentage of life that could exist without the Force would simply be assimilated into the greater Nihil race and forever disappear from the galaxy.

To keep the Jedi and Sith united in the same cause, Revan and Kuryama had both fallen back on familiar roles; the Dark Lord and the General. Fear of Revan and respect of Kuryama bonded the two rival factions in purpose.

And then there were the Pariahs.

Nearly twenty blue- and brown-robed outcasts from Nihil society who had appeared along with Kuryama and Visas were a total mystery to Revan. He had not one scintilla of knowledge about the people behind the eerily familiar masks who followed General Nari as she were a goddess. That he knew nothing about them was profoundly disturbing. The dead zone they occupied in his mind was matched only by the enigmatic Visas Marr, whose true significance had yet to reveal itself.

Though it did not bring him any comfort, Revan had to accept that even he did not have all the answers.

Atton, Mira, and Rigel had joined them shortly before they left the hills, their pursuers seeming to have given up the chase. Revan was not fooled by the shadowy beings he could just barely sense, knew that they were only trying to lull him into complacence. But the three rogues had been completely taken in by their stalkers' strategy. Revan saw no point in reminding them that the two hunters were still out there. Sooner or later they would strike, it was only a matter of when.

Revan was concerned that Rigel could become a liability. The man had to be restrained from attacking the Nihil Pariahs following Kuryama. He saw no reason for the bounty hunter's continued presence among him and his Jedi followers, yet some inner voice warned him not to let Rigel out of his sight.

He felt much the same way about Jilon and Norryl; the two most volatile individuals in his tiny army. They despised each other with a deeply personal hatred beyond anything of mere doctrinal and philosophical conflict. But they were too valuable to lose control of.

As the day wore on, it became increasingly clear to Revan that he and his diverse company would not reach the Temples before the sun set on the horizon. Both the prospect of spending a night on the relatively shelterless terrain that lay before them and that of marching on into the night to hit the strongholds in the darkness when they were exhausted seemed pure suicide. They both raised incredible risk, but he eventually decided that they would have to stop and rest.

He halted the tiny army at a rocky hillside with sparse tree cover that was positioned less than fifteen miles from the now-visible Temples in the distance. It was a compromise between the two only options they had. They would rest for several hours of the night and strike out at the Temples before the Nihil patrols reached them. In the pitch blackness of the cloudy night they would assault the barrier that kept them from the core of the Nihil Empire and the homeworld of the Sacred Saint.

All the Jedi and Sith were ordered to sleep. Revan wanted them to recover as much strength as possible in the short time they would have, and let none but Darth Oden stay awake. Oden didn't sleep, he hadn't slept since Malachor V, and so would act as their watchman. The Nihil Pariahs also insisted on taking short shifts of watch duty as they stood guard in a tight circle around Kuryama and Visas.

Holding himself to his own orders, Revan crossed his legs on the ground and fell into a trance of half-sleep. As he drifted from consciousness, at the far corners of his mind he could sense the two dark entities moving in closer.

* * *

It was mortal screams that woke Kuryama. Her eyes snapped open at the ear-splitting shriek that cut through the night air and she scrambled to her feet. Even before Kuryama found her feet, Visas was up and at the ready, her blue lightsabre gripped firmly in her hand. Kuryama ignited her own viridian blade and took a quick inspection of the scene before her.

The camp was in utter chaos. The red and violet blades of the Sith and the blue, green, and yellow sabres of the Jedi pierced the night everywhere as they jumped to their feet and threw themselves forward at the white menace that attacked out of the dark. The Nihil swung their black energy swords smoldering with a dark yellow-orange glow, biting against the resistance of the skilled Jedi and Sith.

The battle was escalating rapidly. Though Kuryama could still see the first man who had fallen, a Jedi with his torso severed, the numbers of Nihil soldiers coming in was swiftly turning the area into a body-choked deathtrap.

Seeing no other alternative, Kuryama plunged into the battle. Behind her, the Nihil Pariahs charged with her, and Visas somehow maneuvered herself in front of her so she could shoulder the brunt of impact with the enemy. As the Miraluka hit the first three, a blast of Force lightning accompanied the devastating sweep of her lightsabre to cut down two of them before they could bring their own blades to bear.

Soon after Visas' initial strike, Kuryama's lightsabre bit into the enemy. Her viridian sabre hummed in the night air amidst the cacophony as she struck against her opponents' black and orange blades. Her first strike was deflected, forcing her to defend with a quick cut back. As the Nihil pressed the attack, she deliberately drew him out by faking a weakness in her guard. As she hoped, the Nihil overextended himself to go for a killing blow, and she evaded his blade to sink her lightsabre into his chest.

Even before the body could fall to the ground Kuryama whipped around to face two more identically dressed, blade-wielding soldiers. She leaped at them, twisting in midair to lend more power to her blade. Her scything swing cut through the torso of one of the soldiers before he could raise his guard to block her attack. But she wasn't fast enough on the defense to avoid being grazed by the other's energy blade. It raised a line of stinging welts on her shoulder where it burned away the layers of her gray robes. Grunting in pain, she unleashed a knotted Force pulse at the Nihil which shattered its white armor and cracked every bone in his body.

Having gained a few brief seconds of respite, Kuryama took another glance around the camp. She saw blue-white and red flashes in the thickest group of Nihil and assumed it to be Norryl's doing. Jilon and a tattered group of Jedi were assaulting the Nihil's flank. And Revan and Juhani were leading a large contingent of Sith in an attempt to break through the Nihil's encircling forces. She, Visas, and the Nihil Pariahs were attempting to hold the campsite, which Kuryama clearly saw was going to be a fatal endeavor.

Suddenly, a large explosion from what could only have been a thermal detonator illuminated much of the countryside, and Kuryama saw what she had desperately hoped not to see.

A full column of Nihil troops were almost upon them. Numbering over a thousand strong, they were crushing in from behind, cutting off any possible escape back across the plains. They couldn't hold their position against that many, already three Jedi and four Sith had fallen. They had to move forward; into the jaws of the Treason Wall.

Kuryama abandoned trying to hold back the onrushing Nihil and dashed to get to Revan, attacking only those enemies that got in her way. Eventually she found herself back to back with the sabre master.

"Revan, we have to move forward!" she yelled.

"I know!"

"Why didn't Oden warn us?"

"He's abandoned us and kidnapped Bastila!"

"What?!"

They had to end their conversation prematurely as they hit a dense pocket of assaulting Nihil troops. Kuryama didn't even try to fight them all. In her desperation, she began drawing forth powerful waves of concussive Force energy that she hurled ahead at her enemies. As more and more of the white-armored soldiers fell victim to her attacks, their numbers thinned enough to allow Revan almost free reign with his long red lightsabre.

Watching Revan fight was like seeing a flash flood demolish a shaky house. He struck with blinding strength on his attacks and flowed like liquid around his enemies' retaliatory strikes. At times he seemed to be using several different lightsabre forms at once and at others it seemed as if there was nothing but overriding hate guiding his red blade. The Nihil blade-bearers, skilled as they were, were no match for Darth Revan, Dark Lord of the Sith.

Behind them, the Nihil Pariahs charged forward to secure Revan's flank, and Atton of all people was rallying the rest of the Jedi and Sith scattered about the remains of the camp.

As their allies lifted some of the burden from them, Kuryama leaned close to Revan. "This may be our last chance. We have to get away!" Revan responded with a brisk nod and raised his fist in the air.

All of a sudden, the breath was torn from Kuryama's lungs. The night seemed to become even blacker as the air around them rushed into a vortex around Revan. Lightning crackled around him and then exploded from his fist, extending in finger-like tendrils that sought out the white-armored soldiers as a released blast of air rushed simultaneously outward from his body. The ropes of lightning crashed down around the Nihil soldiers, snaking in and among them in search of bodies to destroy. It tore through their numbers, gouging smoking holes in flesh and bone.

When the lightning ceased and all the attacking Nihil lay dead on the ground, Revan swept his hand around in an arc, extinguishing every lit lightsabre and sending the battleground into utter blackness. A harmless glow flared to life in his upraised hand as he spoke to his allies.

"Our next course of action has been chosen for us. We must assault the Temples of the Treason Wall tonight. We will move in the darkness and strike from the darkness, and we must not be drawn into the open."

A wave of murmurs passed among the Jedi and Sith.

"Silence!" Revan hissed.

As everyone obeyed, a new sound was heard in the stillness; battle cries. The thousand Nihil troops were nearly at their doorstep, only a few hundred yards away.

"Those soldiers expect us to make a stand here. We will not play by their rules. We must attack where they do not expect us. Onward to war!" he shouted. As the rest of them roared their approval, a nearly imperceptible wave of light washed over them all. Kuryama felt it affecting her, filling her muscles with vigor and her mind with clarity. And when Revan began running into the darkness, everyone followed.

Sprinting through the pitch black night with only the light of Revan's hands to guide them was almost effortless. Dozens of feet pounded the ground beneath them at lightning-quick speeds as the Jedi, Sith, outcasts, and the trio of misfit mercenaries alike tore across the landscape.

They covered over four miles in ten minutes, when the effects of Revan's power wore off and their bodies again felt the physical drain. Revan, however, looked more focused than ever when the Force speed wore off. He marched resolutely ahead with absolutely no signs whatsoever of fatigue.

With a hand, he motioned Kuryama forward. He pointed off into the darkness. "Watch."

As she stared, Kuryama saw the lights come to life far off in the distance. Thousands of them. With a start she realized that they outlined an enormous ship, a Nihil capital ship. The low profile as if of a crouching predator, the crescent-shaped, blade-sharp scoops in its smooth-lined hull were all illuminated by thousands upon thousands of running lights.

"Oden is there." His features hardened. "And he has my wife."

"What could he possibly want?" Kuryama asked.

"You would know better than I, Kuryama." Revan raised an eyebrow at her. "After all, he was your lover."

Caught off guard by his blunt statement, Kuryama fumbled for words. "Revan, I... we weren't..." She sighed in frustration. "That was a long time ago. We were all something else before the war. He's a complete stranger to me now. I could no more tell you what he wants than I could tell you how you fell in love with Bastila."

"That's true," he admitted. "But reasons aside, I have to face him, and perhaps more importantly, help him take that ship."

"I don't understand."

"Neither do I, not entirely. But somehow we have to take control of that ship, or we will all die at the Wall."

"I don't like the prospect of dividing our forces now."

"It's imperative. I, Juhani, and Norryl will go. No one else."

"How will you get there in time?"

Revan smiled reassuringly. "I'm a prophet, remember? If I say we'll get there, we'll get there." This forced Kuryama into a smile of her own.

She unconsciously lit her own hands as glowing beacons while Revan fell back, picking up the red-robed Juhani and pale-skinned Norryl as he split his path from the main group to head towards to running lights in the distance.

"_Master._" Kuryama was startled by the sudden appearance of Kess beside her.

"What is it, Kess?"

"_Why is Lord Revan leaving us?_" the blue-robed outcast asked.

"He says he must help one of our allies deal with that imperial ship in the distance."

"_Master, may I suggest we leave this open ground?_"

Kuryama furrowed her brow. "How are we to do that? The terrain is open plains and hills between here and the Wall."

Kess gesticulated with her hands as she elaborated. "_Yes, I realize that. But we are very close to the Wall now. Perhaps close enough to take refuge in the catacombs that run under the Temples and out onto the plains._"

"Tunnels?"

"_Yes, Master._"

"Will not the Rayaj know of them?"

"_Perhaps they will. But on the surface the Temples will be guarded by thousands of soldiers. Underground and inside the Temples there can be no such concentration of strength. The defenses will be weaker and we will not be as exposed to the sky._"

The Nihil Pariah spoke truth. The last installation of this importance that Kuryama had attacked had been guarded by thousands upon thousands of Nihil soldiers; she expected the Temples Of Sacrifice would be similarly defended. Taking an underground route, rather than throwing her forces into the meat grinder of a frontal assault, would greatly increase their chances of survival.

Kuryama nodded to Kess. "Take us to these tunnels."

Kess waved her hand and her three outcast sisters came forward from among the brown-robed men, who marched along at the flanks of the group. They fanned out a good twenty feet ahead of her, lighting their way with what looked to be brightly-glowing glass shards.

After continuing on for a few minutes, one of them trilled with discovery. Kuryama looked on in amazement as a section of the grassland shimmered a moment and rose several feet into the air, exposing a torch-lit passageway. The four Nihil women crouched around the opening and waved her and the Jedi forward.

They hurriedly followed the four into the subterranean passage, their numbers filling much of the tunnel by the time the four women closed the entrance.

Kess elbowed her way through the close confines back into the front with Kuryama and Visas. "_The tunnel will widen farther ahead and branch off in several directions._"

Kuryama nodded. "We'll figure out where next to go from there."

As Kess promised, the tunnel did widen. The earthen walls, only six feet apart at the entrance, nearly tripled in spread and gave way to fine-worked masonry. The floor too, changed from hard-packed dirt to a smooth, dark gray marble. Lit by evenly spaced torches, the tunnel had a surreal stillness and quiet that made it seem like nothing so much as a tomb.

When they did finally come to the fork in the tunnel, Kuryama could sense something amiss. It was as if the air was stretched like a cord under tension. She could feel her gentle probings with the Force disappearing into a hollow in her perception like a whirlpool.

Unsettled, she stopped.

"What is wrong?" Visas asked.

Wordlessly, Kuryama turned around. She heard Atton and Mira both scream in warning as a pair of blades sank into her chest.

* * *

Darth Oden looked with awe over the immense drive core of the Nihil capital ship. It was easily twice the size of his ship, and he knew the ship had three of them. He felt a rush of pleasure imagining the sheer power put out by the three massive engines; kinetic force on a scale neither Republic nor Sith ship engines could ever match. It was truly a thing of beauty.

Getting onto the ship had been delightfully easy for him and Rydak. Having gained knowledge of the Nihil hierarchy from the Pariahs, Oden was able to formulate disguises for both of them that kept the hundreds and thousands of enemy soldiers in too much fear to question their presence among them. He and Rydak wore masks identical to those worn in one of the highest castes within Nihil society; the Rayaj, personal enforcers of the Saint's will.

Darth Oden and his servant strode unmolested through thousands of Nihil troops, the unconscious body of of Jedi Bastila slung over Rydak's shoulder.

She was only now recovering from her deep sedation, cautiously opening her eyes and flexing her fingers. Oden knew it wouldn't take very long for her to start wishing she could remain comatose.

Rydak had set to work quickly once he and Oden cleared out the vast engine room for their purposes. The experienced Sith already had Bastila stripped and stretched out over the sharp white steps leading up around the pulsating engine core. Her ankles and wrists were bound to the floor with modified force cuffs that were magnetically bonded to the steps over her limbs; a mark of Rydak's specialized profession.

He and Darth Oden watched the pain of her agonizing position slowly hit her reawakening mind. To her credit, she didn't cry out from the torturous pressure of the sharp-ridged steps on her back, but she was unable to prevent tears of pain from pooling in her eyes. Rydak observed with considerable pleasure as she tried to dislodge the restraints on her wrists and ankles with the Force, only to find that she could not so much as brush them with her Force powers.

Dispassionately, the Sith leaned cruelly on one of her arms until she couldn't contain her cry of pain.

"I can tell what you're thinking: Why won't it work? I'll tell you why. I'm a Force Suppressor, one of the nastier varieties of Sith. That gives me the ability to control your connection to the Force, so you can't do anything with it that I don't want you to. Were you strong enough, you could tear your hands free from the restraints, but the Force is not going to help you."

Bastila glared at him, but still said nothing. Satisfied that he had made his point, Rydak stepped back to make way for Darth Oden to stand above the bound Jedi.

"What purpose will this possibly serve, Oden?" Bastila hissed at him.

Oden crossed his arms and smiled down at her. "I am helping Revan's cause, and furthering my own. He will come for you, there is no doubt of that. Because he knows everything that happens along this line if he doesn't. You know what he is; he's no Jedi, nor is he Sith."

She stared defiantly back up at him. "Revan will always be what he needs to be."

"He is a prophet!" Oden roared, his voice heating with rage. "Did you never wonder why or how he switches allegiances so easily? Or did you foolishly believe him some 'prodigal knight'? I know enough about true prophets, enough to know that Revan is one.

"Prophets don't perceive the universe through the Force the same way as the rest of us; they see every action or decision with its consequences, sometimes far down the line. Revan saw this whole thing coming before the Mandalorian wars began. He saw it every step of the way and how the slightest deviation would send the galaxy plummeting into the abyss. The Council were too afraid to face the necessity of Revan's cause, thoughtlessly believing their self-fulfilling visions to be true prophecy while Revan saw everything.

"Now he has led us here, where even his prophetic insights are failing him. Were we to continue on, we would all perish at the Treason Wall because Revan has been blinded. I am saving him, and all the other Jedi who would have been led to their deaths."

"Enlighten me, Oden. How will holding me at your mercy save Revan and the Jedi?"

"It will force him to change tactics. He knows I'm gone and that I've taken you. And this is one fork of events that will rivet his mind. Because you are involved, he will be fed intense visions of what I do to you and what I intend yet to do through your mind link. He will see this fork as plain as day, and nothing will stop him from coming, and bring enough passion to succeed.

"I want him to come. He and I must wrest control of this ship into our hands in order to allow General Nari and her followers time to break the Treason Wall. And after that, when you are both of no further use to me, I will release you and let you and Revan continue on your mad quest. I have my own plans for this ship when Revan is done with it."

"What plans?"

"Revan will fail," Darth Oden pronounced. "There is no way for him to succeed in this wild scheme of his. He knows what lies down this line and yet he stubbornly persists, despite knowing that in the end, to carry through will require a sacrifice he cannot ask of his followers.

"I am salvation, redemption for the galaxy. I will baptize it in blood from the ashes left behind by my destruction of its broken civilization. The stage is set; every Nihil-occupied world must die. And I will begin my own crusade right here and right now."

He turned his dark eyes to Rydak. "You can have her now."

Sadistic delight spread Rydak's face in a wide grin. He bent over Bastila and produced a curved knife with which he carved a crescent-shaped incision on the side of her breast. She bit back a cry as blood oozed from the fresh wound. Rydak wiped the blade on his palm, rubbing the blood over his hands as he talked to Bastila like a surgeon to a patient.

"When there were others of my kind, some of them would take their women with vibrorods or some other instrument that left no mark. I always preferred the old-fashioned way, with lots of blood in lots of places. It makes the experience so much more special, and as I understand it, far more humiliating and painful for the victim.

"So shall we get started?"

Bastila finally did scream as he made two curving cuts from her collar down across her chest. The wounds bled profusely as Rydak rapidly worked his knife, slicing her all over with ritualistic cuts. By the time he finished, her body was on fire with agony and covered in blood. But she knew the pain had only just begun.

* * *

Carth Onasi stared in disbelief down at the ensign in his arms, the ensign who had only moments ago had hopes, dreams, aspirations. A piece of explosion-borne shrapnel from the ceiling had impaled the poor kid and he bled to death in the Admiral's arms. A look around the bridge of his cruiser, _Pure Of Heart_, was demoralizing.

More than half of the bridge crew lay on the floor dead, many of the surviving crew critically injured. The bridge itself was a wreck; several power conduits had exploded in the walls, setting damaging fires, while he and the crew tried desperately to fight back with everything they and the ship possessed. In the end, they were powerless against the awesome might of the enemy fleet.

Admiral Onasi's fleet had scored some early kills against the enemy's advance scout, which they at first had mistaken for the main fleet for all its size. Twenty ships, averaging a medium tonnage, had appeared first and set upon his ragged fleet. They'd held their own for a while, destroying eight small ships and four larger ones.

But shortly after the Republic inflicted their last casualty, the full force of the enemy came down on them. A hundred ships of capital tonnage and a hundred and fifty smaller ships quickly swamped Republic resistance.

Onasi's fleet had less than eight ships remaining, only two of capital class, the rest lost to the enemy's overwhelming firepower. They were surrounded on all sides, breathlessly waiting and wondering why they weren't dead yet.

It came as a surprise when the communications screen clicked on, showing Onasi the bridge of one of the opposing ships holding steady in front of his cruiser. A black-robed figure wearing a white and red mask sat on an ornate chair on a raised circular platform. Beneath him, a ring of white-armored figures sat at their posts, monitoring instruments and sensor feeds. The whole chamber was lit by a glowing ring of light along the outside of the raised platform, highlighting the white of the ship master's mask.

"By the authority of Sacred Saint Akar, the Nihil Empire demands your unconditional surrender."

Onasi was surprised to hear Galactic Basic come from the alien's mouth. The last few times when they offered planets the choice to surrender, they had broadcasted images of captured Republic soldiers under torture begging for the commanders to surrender the planet.

Beaten or not, Telos was not going down without a fight.

Setting the body of the dead ensign aside, Carth stood. "You want our surrender? Well here it is!" With both his hands he made a single-fingered gesture and hurled a vile epithet at the faceless man on the screen.

There was no response. The camera feed clicked off.

Carth turned to the weapons officer. "Tell me his shields are down, lieutenant."

"Affirmative."

"Signal the other ships," he ordered. "Direct intercept course on that flagship, full speed."

"Aye aye, sir!"

_Pure Of Heart_'s rattled engines roared back to life and the ship hurled itself forward, leading the remnants of Admiral Onasi's fleet on what would be a collision course with the monstrous ship facing them.

"Last resort, Admiral?" the lieutenant asked.

Carth nodded. "A little thing I learned from the Mandalorians: When you are outnumbered and the situation is hopeless, you must attack."

Carth's ship hit first, slamming into the prow of the Nihil ship at nearly full speed. As the forward section crushed inward, cracking the thick armor plating of the Nihil ship, the remaining bulk tore the breach wide open and sent up a flare of detonations along the hull. _Pure Of Heart_ disintegrated in an orange flash as its drive core ruptured, toxic reactor fluids heating the blaze to nearly solar temperatures. The silver hull of the Nihil ship blackened under the intense blast.

When the other Republic ships hit, they punched clean through the buckled armor and caused massive structural damage. The entire forward section of the silver ship was collapsing.

The last ship tore straight through the enemy's main reactor as it detonated, and the mighty Nihil capital ship erupted in a red-orange sheet of explosions.

_To be continued..._


	9. Transgressions

The pain was like a dull buzz in her head, the world swimming in her vision as she fell backward, trailing long arcs of fresh blood. Her body hit the hard stone floor with a limp thud as people crowded over her, subduing the man who'd attacked her. She could count the individual drops of her blood as they splashed over her, painting crimson spots on her gray robes.

Neither of the two wounds in her chest were near her heart, they were nearly inconsequential, but Kuryama could almost feel her willpower bleeding away with her lifeblood. Existence just seemed pointless. Part of her mind fought the encroaching apathy, but its voice was weak and quickly drowned out by the unknown forces at work within her. It was as if she were circling the whirlpool, that hollow she could feel all around her that was a vivid reminder of Malachor V.

Suddenly, a blistering wave of exquisite agony blasted away the fog of lifeless serenity settling over her. She felt hands on her wounds, the touch firing every nerve in her body with that blessed suffering so intrinsic to life.

Kuryama's mind came sharply back into focus.

Directly above her, touching her hands to the bleeding gashes, the blue-robed figure of Kess knelt, screaming in anguish as she disintegrated before Kuryama's eyes. As the Nihil woman's cry faded into nothingness along with the rest of her, her empty robes and mask fell over Kuryama as the last trace of her existence.

Numbly, Kuryama stared at the vacant mask she clutched in her hands while Visas helped her to her feet. Through means beyond her comprehension, the Nihil woman had given her life to save hers.

Kuryama looked about at the faces around her. Mira and Rigel were furious, casting everyone suspicious and threatening glares. Visas, her face unreadable, had her lightsabre in her fist, keeping everyone at arm's length while she supported Kuryama with her other arm. Atton was gravely concerned, as was Jilon. He looked anxiously over Atton's shoulder, held back from rushing to her side by the other Jedi.

"I will be fine," she assured them all, putting their fears to rest. Though her still-bleeding wounds would require attention, she knew that they hadn't been the immediate danger.

Kuryama looked to Mira, who was alternating between glowering at everyone in sight and glancing worriedly to the other bleeding body on the floor. She followed the bounty hunter's gaze and found the culprit behind her attack.

It was a Jedi. His brown robes were torn and stained red by a horrific gash to his lower back where his spinal cord had been severed.

With her foot, she rolled the man over and found he was still alive. He was coughing blood over the floor, but still breathing She could see the two knives, wavy exotic blades, still clutched in his hands and also wet with blood--hers.

Kuryama grabbed the Jedi by the collar, hauling his face close to hers. Of everything she would have asked him, only one question flew from her mouth. "Why?!"

The man shivered with a convulsion and cast a terrified look into the shadows. "Th-th-they don't g-give us reasons." Almost before he finished his sentence, a gut-wrenching sound was heard and a sharp metal rod exploded from his chest up into his chin and drove clean through his head. The knives in his hands disintegrated into tiny silver shards.

Horrified, Kuryama dropped the dead man and stepped back, quickly purging her feelings. They had other issues.

She looked to Visas. "Please ask Myr, Siv, and Kal to come to me."

As the Miraluka went to bring the three outcasts, Jilon finally shoved his way through. "General, your wounds need to be healed," he admonished.

"Do they?" She looked down at her sides and saw the dark red stains still spreading on her robes. "I guess they do."

"If I may have your permission, General?"

Kuryama nodded. "Go ahead." He lightly touched the two wounds with his hands, drawing healing power from the Force and washing it over her injuries, gently knitting them back together. His healing touch she remembered so well gave her a familiar rush of lightheadedness.

She smiled at him. "Thank you, Jilon."

A ghost of a smile crossed his face. "Kury, there is one thing I must ask. I confess I heard you and Revan talking earlier, and I heard him..." he cleared his throat uncomfortably, "I heard him say that Dalez was your lover."

His betrayed expression was like a knife in the heart. "I'm sorry, Jilon," she whispered. "I should have been the one to tell you about my... questionable practices during the war."

"It's all right, General. You had it the hardest of all of us. I don't blame you for seeking comfort with others."

Kuryama shook her head, trying to keep tears of shame from her eyes. "No it wasn't all right. I should never have done that to you. Or the others. All that time I thought it was love, but it was really only ever greed. Kurt was a wakeup call for me. I haven't been with anyone since, because I don't deserve to."

"I guess we've all done things we'll always regret," Jilon whispered.

Before Kuryama could say more, Visas and the three Nihil women interrupted her thoughts and she was forced back to the serious matters at hand. Forcing her personal feelings beneath the surface, she slid back into the role of the General.

"Myr, Siv, Kal," Kuryama said, "Kess is dead. I need you to lead us into the Temples."

"_Of course, Master. Kess is proud to have served you,_" Siv answered. She and her two sisters gave small bows and immediately began down the stone corridor. Kuryama and Visas followed and in their wake came the Jedi, Sith, and brown-robed Pariahs. Atton and Mira edged their way forward to walk at Kuryama's flanks. Rigel strode behind her with his biggest blaster in his hands, and next to him was Jilon who held his lightsabre at the ready.

Swiftly, the column pressed ever deeper into the underground passages. Kuryama quickly lost track of the distance in the stretching tunnels as they bit ever closer to their destination, eventually coming to a thick stone door. The great stone gate was plain and unadorned but for a carving of three parabolic spikes, the tallest of which stretched the door's whole height.

When they stopped, the three outcasts murmured to each other in what Kuryama supposed were worried tones. She felt her own trepidation rise precipitously when a loud grating was heard and the door starting cracking open. The massive stone slab slowly pulled itself inward and swung open to reveal two dark figures.

One was smaller and slimmer than the other, indicating it was a man and a woman, but that was where the differences ended. They both wore identical black robes and cowls, the same skull-like masks with red streaks above the empty eye holes. And they exuded the same feeling of tingling dread as Kuryama had felt before being stabbed by the traitorous Jedi.

There was no doubt in her mind; these were the Rayaj.

Myr, Siv, and Kal wailed in terror at the sight of the two and were cast aside by an invisible force as if weightless. Kuryama suddenly felt very exposed as the two nightmarish figures stepped forward , fixing their invisible eyes on her and Visas, who struggled to control her quivers.

No one moved. No one could move. Jedi, Sith, and Nihil alike were paralyzed by the awesome power pouring from the two silent Rayaj. When they spoke, their two voices joined as one and pounded into Kuryama's mind like a sledgehammer. She couldn't understand the words, but nevertheless felt herself moving forward, as if being dragged. She tried not to cooperate but was stunned by a flash of pain and kept edging forward despite her efforts at resisting. She heard the huge stone door grind shut behind her, leaving her and Visas alone with the Rayaj.

Again, she heard their hissing, howling speech in her mind, and felt another sharp lance of pain take her to her knees. Visas dropped down beside her, putting her face to the ground. Gradually, the alien speech coalesced into words she could comprehend, blasting relentlessly into her consciousness.

_Sinners, you trespass on our holy ground._

Kuryama finally found her voice, felt control of her mouth and lips return to her. "Who are you?"

_We are meaningless. What we represent is what is important._

"What do you represent?"

_The power of the Rayaj, the Right Hand of Saint Akar Xiylehn, ruler of the Sacred Nihil Empire._

Kuryama heard Visas sobbing beside her, trapped as she was by the seemingly omnipotent power of the two Rayaj. This was what being under Darth Nihilus' domination had been like, Kuryama realized. Visas was returning to that same bondage.

If she could have wept for the Miraluka, she would have.

_Out of all you heathens who invade our empire, Saint Akar is most interested in you two. He was even prepared to show you mercy by allowing us to cause your execution. You would have known a peaceful death as is rarely given to blasphemers, but the slave prevented it by taking the mark of the wound from you._

The treacherous Jedi had been forced into his betrayal. Kuryama could see how easily these two might have broken him under their will. It was a struggle just to maintain her sense of self.

"Why should Akar be interested in Visas and I if we are heathens?" she forced herself to ask, astonished by how staggeringly difficult it was becoming.

_You have the potential to live as we do, without the influence of the accursed Force. And the other is a spirit sister to us._

Kuryama saw them touch a finger to their foreheads; a gesture which Visas mirrored, though she couldn't tell whether she did it voluntarily. When she tried next to speak, to ask another burning question, she found her control of her mouth and tongue completely gone. She was helpless in the icy grip of the strange power with which the two masked ones held her. Her will, her very life, was no longer hers--it was theirs.

_There will be no more discussion. You were offered the choice of death once. Now you must take the path of all other traitors to the righteous cause of the Nihil Empire: Here, in the Temple Of Sacrifice, you forfeit your souls._

Visas stopped sobbing and knelt upright beside Kuryama as they both stared into the faceless, remorseless masks of the Rayaj and waited for the end.

With a deafening roar, the world went black.

* * *

In the Mandalorian conflict, among his friends and foes alike, Jedi Revan earned the title 'soul-reaper' for his ability to effect incredible slaughter of his enemies and for the way in which he could effortlessly win large groups of people to his side. He reaped the souls of his foes in death, and those of his friends in undying loyalty. During his next war with the Republic as Darth Revan, he became the Lord of Battle, an unparalleled master of single combat and expert in strategic warfare.

When he, Juhani, and Norryl smashed into the Nihil's defensive perimeter around their capital ship, Revan was both.

He didn't even think of how he was to kill his enemy; he simply did. It didn't matter what they threw at him in their desperate attempts to ward him off. He flowed into the gaps in their defenses and dispatched them at will with unflinching, single-minded determination and breathtaking skill.

The force propelling him on to such inhuman ferocity and cold-blooded efficiency was the pain invading his mind, creeping through a back-door into his psyche that had been forged of love. It was the agony of feeling his beloved wife brutally tortured. He could feel her torment burning in his soul where it ignited a conflagration that had never before been unleashed.

Revan became the Soulreaper, he became Lord of Battle, he let his hatred and fury burn hotter than the mountains of Mustafar, strengthening him with lethal intent and deadly need. No foe was safe from his thundering wrath. His blade claimed many a Nihil soldier when they reached the main force guarding the ship's boarding ramps.

Having sent thousands off to rake the countryside in relentless search for the intruding Jedi, the Nihil left themselves dangerously exposed and understrength, giving Revan and his two companions the perfect opportunity to knife through. The twin juggernauts of Revan's righteous fury and Norryl's heedless passion split the small army into a confused mob. Disorganized and leaderless, some ran while others stood and fought, and still others killed those who ran.

The Nihil were unable to crush the three lone figures with their overwhelming numbers, for they skirted through the sparser pockets and evaded their counter-attacks like smoke in the wind, inflicting disproportional casualties and slipping away.

Sweeping her enemies off their feet, Norryl incinerated them, tore them apart, killed them in many imaginative ways. She guarded Revan's flanks while he and Juhani bit into the masses with lightsabre and skill.

The athletic Cathar spun, ducked, and dove about, putting her entire body behind fearsome sweeps with her two blue blades, and with each leap cleaving through many enemies. Her lightsabres twirled like a whirlwind, deflecting dozens of energy blasts and slicing open any Nihil soldier who came near.

Revan strode forward, methodically exterminating anything in his path with a long-handled sabrescythe. The wicked red blade never wavered for an instant, chopping foes to pieces against little resistance. Even those who attempted to fight him off with their own ghastly black energy blades were quickly neutralized. They were not prepared for the sheer power with which Revan threw his attacks. Severed hands and arms fell from those who tried to hold off his seeking red blade, before they were sliced open or beheaded.

As they drew close to the ship itself, defensive turrets targeted them. Redirected energy bolts and short blasts of disabling lightning silenced them quickly while the Norryl, Juhani, and Revan strode up a boarding ramp over burned and broken corpses.

Inside the ship, they were greeted by long, winding white corridors kept in low light by glowing panels on the floor. Stiff, sharp ribs protruded from the walls every ten feet, giving the corridor the feeling of walking inside a gigantic, mile-long ribcage.

There were few crew to be seen as Norryl and Juhani stormed along the hallways in Revan's wake. Those they did encounter were not up for a fight and attempted to flee, but Norryl annihilated them out of existence with her vicious red lightning.

Revan didn't need to think about where they were to go, he was operating solely on instinct and perception. The link between him and Bastila, continually reminding him of what unspeakable horrors were being done to his wife, burned hotter than ever now that he was so close, and would guide him straight to her.

He led them deeper and deeper into the interior of the ship, holding his sabrescythe in one hand as he stalked resolutely forward. His mind ticked furiously, building a mental diagram of every corridor passed, turns taken, and distances traveled. When he compared his mental map to his recollection of the ship's appearance, he deduced that they were reaching the heart of the ship.

The lack of security forces began to bother him. The three of them were heathens, intruding on one of the ships of the Inquisition, and they'd run into no resistance once inside. It made no sense at all compared to the fanatical devotion he'd seen displayed in nearly all his encounters with the Nihil.

Part of his mind urged caution, but it was swiftly drowned out by the rampaging fury that grew with each minute as he came closer and closer.

Finally, he came to the last door. Releasing some of his seething anger, Revan lashed out and hit the sealed door with a compressed Force pulse that tore a hole in the wall as it demolished the obstacle.

What he found inside, however, was unexpected.

Well over a dozen Nihil corpses littered the floor of what appeared to be an auxiliary control center. They did not bear the featureless masks of common soldiers, but rather the more ornate ones worn by officers and commanders. It was a massacre of leadership. And in its center stood the black-robed, dark-skinned figure of Darth Oden, hands glowing a dark blue.

Bastila and her tormentor were nowhere in sight.

Revan's hands shook with rage as he glared hatefully at the Sith Lord. "What heinous game is this, Oden?"

Oden flicked his wrists and his hands darkened, the lightsabre field deactivated. Calmly, he crossed his arms and responded evenly. "No game, but a very serious matter. I took control of your link with Bastila to make you see something very important."

"Where. Is. _She_?"

"She is being harmed greatly at this moment, as I'm sure you know."

Revan lifted his free hand and instantly a bolt of lightning arced from his rigid fingers to the ceiling. "He stops right now, or you and I fight to the death. And no matter who wins, you lose." There was no hesitancy in his voice, no second thoughts. He had completed his transformation to true Dark Lord of the Sith, the unflinching Darth Revan who ordered thousands to their deaths on a whim.

Unhurried, Oden spoke into a communicator. "Rydak, give the Jedi a reprieve."

Almost immediately, Revan felt Bastila's pain lessen to a dull burn. He throttled back his rage and exercised his rational mind again. "What is this about, Oden?"

Suddenly, after remaining so calm, the Darth Oden became angry. "It's about you, Revan! You and your prophecies were going to lead us all to our senseless deaths!"

"You of all people, General Dalez, should understand why we are doing this," Revan retorted. "You understood on Malachor, enough to die for it. How have things changed?"

Both men assumed a quiet, collected, deadly calm. Juhani and Norryl stayed back and were ignored by them both as they faced each other down.

Unwilling to be distracted, Oden broke the ice. "When the Jedi and Sith hit the Treason Wall, every one of them will die. Hundreds of thousands of Nihil soldiers guard those Temples, as well as scores of those most dangerous Nihil disciples; the Rayaj. Even one Rayaj cleric or prelate is enough to eradicate your minuscule army. Just weeks ago, there was one loose in the Republic, and he caused unimaginable suffering before General Nari was somehow able to defeat him. He consumed entire worlds.

"And you would send us all against them, expecting us to trade our lives to give Nari time to do what may well be impossible? You would be the end of all life if you were allowed to continue. I have given you a second choice.

"I offer you this, Revan: You will help me take control of this vessel. With it, we aid the General and her troops and give her whatever time we can. If any of us survive, I will return Bastila to you."

For an instant, Revan saw down two branches of the same unending chain of events. Each horrified him beyond human belief, sickened him with such atrocities as he could barely imagine. Both held the almost the same outcome; death and destruction so pervasive it was truly inescapable. This was a choice he'd had to make nearly fifteen years ago. And as he had then, he chose again the only path that offered a glimmer of hope.

"I will help you."

Darth Oden bowed his head, almost gratefully. "The process is already begun." He indicated the bodies on the floor. "Without their leaders, the crew of this ship are quite easily intimidated and even molded to the will of one more powerful than they. I started killing the officers soon after I came on board, and the crew immediately flocked to others, whom I also killed. If we eliminate those in command, the low-caste grunts will offer almost no resistance."

"But to go around killing all the officers would be impossible for the same reason I do not simply kill you now and find my wife," Revan interjected. "Searching a ship of this size would take weeks. We have hours at the most."

"Even I do not think you so naive, Revan. You knew the necessity long before I did, and you planned accordingly." Oden pointed to the black-robed figure of Norryl, who stood in the broken doorway alongside Juhani, staying out of the way. "I surmise it was for this purpose that you kept her. She has the power, and the willingness to give what is necessary."

Revan understood Oden's meaning. Norryl had incredible killing powers, he'd seen her annihilate dozens at a time. But that power came at a terrible price, for Norryl fed it with her life's energy. Oden was right; this was what he had preserved her for. But knowing the helpless hatred and lust for vengeance in the woman's soul, Revan hesitated.

He knew she would not survive if he asked her to do this.

_Hesitation is death_, he reminded himself as time ticked away, irretrievable.

Revan turned to the blond woman with the pale face and orange eyes. He found himself feeling surprising compassion for her, but with effort he forced it down. There was no other way.

"Can you use your power to kill the Nihil officers on this ship?"

Silently, she nodded. "If that is your wish, Lord Revan, I will give my life for you."

"I'm sorry, Norryl. Jilon will not forever escape what he has done."

Norryl shook her head. "It's better this way. I know what I am and I don't deserve mercy. Consider this my punishment come due."

A tear trickled down Revan's cheek. "You have my thanks and eternal gratitude. Die well, Darth Norryl."

Her head bowed, the two Sith Lords and the Cathar watching, Norryl stepped out into the hall and raised her hands out straight. She tossed her head back and the red lightning exploded from her body.

* * *

Atton looked on in disgust as Jilon pounded futilely on the thick stone door. As soon as it had shut, cutting them off from Kuryama and Visas and the two black-robed Nihil, everyone could breathe again. He'd felt paralyzed with fear, but he knew it was more than that; it was the same feeling he'd felt in the forest only magnified hundreds of times. It had held him, and everyone else present, motionless. But now that the influence had left, the throng crowding the tunnel was coming dangerously close to rioting.

Mira and Rigel held their blasters ready, keeping wary eyes on the crowd while they examined the barrier.

To their part, the Sith were remaining calm; dispassionately watching the proceedings with jaundiced eyes. Some of the Jedi, however, and the Nihil Pariahs were nearly frantic. In desperation, some pounded on the solid vault door, reasoned thought not even occurring to them.

Removed, Atton saw it all play out and was disgusted.

With a growl, he grabbed Jilon's shoulder and thrashed the man until he looked him in the eyes. "Get a hold of yourself, man! This isn't going to help _anything_!" he yelled in the Jedi's face.

Almost out of instinct, Jilon pulled his lightsabre. Before he could activate it, however, Atton slugged him square in the face, sending him to the stone floor. "I said this won't help!" he roared, his ire now directed at all the Jedi. The chaos around him paused for a moment as all eyes turned to him.

Atton felt himself being drawn back into the hated persona of Jaq Rand, despite his vow never to be that person again. But grimly, he refused to back down to the Jedi and Sith before him. If it took Jaq to get the message across, then he'd be Jaq, because otherwise the fragile coalition would devour itself.

"The last thing we should be doing right now is panicking. We're Jedi, we're Sith, and we're better than this! Personal feelings--" he glared hotly at Jilon, "--are irrelevant. All that matters at this point is what's logical, practical, and possible. If we die here, at each other's throats because of something entirely beyond our control, we all lose everything and the Nihil win and go on to kill the Force."

"Brave words," one of the Sith, a red-eyed Cathar, snorted. "But you are inferior to us. You cannot even feel the Force."

Without hesitation, Atton lifted a fist toward the Sith, who was suddenly thrown backward by a Force pulse.

Nearly as stunned as the Cathar by his unexpected demonstration of Force powers, Atton knew he couldn't show even the slightest weakness now. "Maybe not," he responded, "but it still does my bidding."

He sneered down at the Sith as he picked himself up. "I broke you, Kasilov. Don't you remember that? I didn't even do this much to you then, and you still broke!"

Kasilov glowered balefully at him.

"If that's all from you, Kasilov," Atton snapped, "we should abandon this futile effort and find another way around this obstacle."

No one offered another objection.

Atton turned to Mira and Rigel. "Tell me all that fancy equipment you've got can get us some kind of map of this place. We need another way through this mess."

Mira cocked her head at him. "You don't really think they're still alive?"

Wearily, Atton ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. "I really don't know. But I'd rather operate on the assumption that they are."

"Right." She nodded and elbowed Rigel, who was already furiously scanning with one of his devices.

He hadn't even been at it for a minute when he spoke up. "Uh, guys, we might have a problem. And I think we should get away from this door right now."

"What is it?" Mira asked.

"Weapons fire," was Rigel's response.

The fine hairs on the back of his neck prickled as Atton sensed the energy mortars hurtling down through the air. "Back! Get everyone back! _Move_!" he screamed.

Confusion reigned once again as the dozens of people rushed down the tunnel away from the vault door. They needed little encouragement as the whine of the oncoming charges shrieked in their ears through the ground above.

In seconds there was a massive detonation which shook the whole passageway. Torches on the wall flickered out as dust and debris fell from the ceiling. Jedi, Sith, and Nihil alike fell to the floor as the rumbling continued without letup. An avalanche of rock and stone dust choked the air as a section of ceiling caved in, letting in the sparse starlight. There was a final boom and thunderous crash of solid rock being sundered and the impacts moved off into the distance.

Coughing, the people in the tunnel picked themselves up. Rigel was quick with a flashlight, illuminating the devastated tunnel ahead.

The huge vault door, seven feet of solid rock, was cleaved in two, a gaping crack wide enough for two people running down the center and debris everywhere. Atton ran forward but was beaten to it by Jilon, who clambered through the crack to the other side, bathing the path beyond with light from his sabre.

The first thing Atton saw inside was torn black robes and cracked masks soaked with blood. The two Rayaj were dead.

Then he heard Jilon cry out in relief and his eyes found the forms of Kuryama and Visas. He bent over and grasped Visas' hand and felt her squeeze back weakly.

"They're alive!"


	10. Ashes Of Remembrance

"Exclamation: Master! It is a pleasure to hear your voice again! Statement: I was worried there might have been too many hostile meatbags for you to handle on your own."

"Did they buy the decoy?"

"Answer: The distraction was perfectly executed. They firmly believe our ship to be destroyed. We have not been intruded upon."

"How are things progressing on your end?"

"Answer: Oh, splendidly, Master. Elaboration: The T3 droid and I have made considerable repairs to the ship's numerous damaged components. Recitation: The damaged components deemed in need of repairs included the cockpit windshield, navigational controls, flight stabilizers, airlock mechanisms, buffer conduits, landing gear--"

"Okay, I get the picture. You've done a lot of work. Are the packages intact?"

"Jubilant Answer: Yes, Master! Relieved Statement: I admit I was rather worried some might have been damaged in the crash, but all survived without harm."

"Good. Don't touch them until I get back."

"Statement: Yes, Master. I shall resist the temptation."

"One more thing. Have you tested the modifications we made back at the base?"

"Answer: Yes, Master. They functioned exceptionally well."

"Alright, good. Radio me as soon as the ship is ready to fly again."

"Statement: Yes, Master."

Clicking off the channel, Revan studied the night sky, watching a point of bright light ascending ever-further into the sparse stars.

The true betrayal had been made, Darth Oden had abandoned them for his own agenda, which Revan could see would be just as destructive as the Nihil's crusade. But there had been no alternative, not if he wished to save Bastila or anyone else. He'd made a choice to keep hope alive. Norryl had sacrificed herself for him to make that choice.

Now Oden was gone, taking the Nihil capital ship for his own purposes, and leaving him with only the faintest vestige of his link with Bastila. She was out here, somewhere, having been discarded from the ship like unwanted refuse. Revan knew her torturer had done his damage; he could sense the violated and brutalized condition of her body as she clung weakly to life.

Standing next to him, Juhani gently nudged him back into attention and he surveyed the ground ahead of them. In the distance fires burned where Oden's bombardment from the capital ship had eradicated Nihil ground defenses around the nearest temple. So far, there was still no trace of Kuryama's forces, and Revan could only hope that they had survived.

Darth Oden was right; his prophetic insights _were_ being blinded. The only reason he had seen so clearly just hours ago had been because of Bastila's involvement. Their link was strong, and had been sufficient to pound visions into his mind. But anything with less of a direct connection to him was shut out.

Right now, while the droids made things ready for their eventual retreat, he had to reestablish contact with the Jedi-Sith alliance. But before he did, he would find Bastila. She was waiting for him, somewhere...

Suddenly, he felt something that caused his rage to flare to life again, strengthening the bond and giving his Force perceptions an exact point to home in on. Revan broke out in a run, drawing a single-bladed lightsabre from his assortment that he carried with him at all times. Bathed in the flickering orange light of the infernos raging in the distance, he saw a lone Nihil soldier dragging something--a body.

Racing after Revan, Juhani ignited her sabre as well, but the enemy was his. He took an enormous leap to swipe the head clean off of the white-armored soldier.

The Nihil toppled to the ground at Revan's feet, beside the naked, bloody, bruised, and battered body of Bastila. There was not an inch of her that was not covered in grime, sweat, and blood. Some of her horrific wounds were partially scabbed-over while others were freshly bleeding, and even beneath the layers of blood smeared over her, the blue and black bruises were pronounced enough to make his stomach twist.

Without hesitation or further thought, Revan tore off his cloak and cast it over Bastila's forlorn form. He bent down to his knees and gently cradled her head in his hands, instantly letting a steady flow of soothing, restorative Force energy pass to her.

In that moment of time, she was all that existed. Nothing mattered to him in the universe except easing her pain and healing her wounds. She was right on the cusp, beaten and brutalized to the point of death. He was terrified that even his healing powers would not be enough to save her, so weak was her life.

The thought of losing her scared him more than watching the whole galaxy die around him.

A supportive, protecting hand touched his shoulder and Revan felt the welcome presence of Juhani as she added her power to his. Slowly, Bastila's life force strengthened. The countless contusions, lacerations, and ritualistic gashes all over her body slowly sealed themselves, fractured bones realigned, and her mind came out of its pain-induced coma to rest in a light sleep.

Revan was unsure of how long he crouched by her side, content just to hold her while Juhani stood on guard. He nearly cried with relief when she stirred in his arms and opened her eyes. She looked up at him and smiled one of her smiles that made the misery of life worthwhile.

"Calum, you shouldn't have.." she whispered.

Revan gripped her hand tightly. "Bastila, you mean more to me than anything else in this life. I would never abandon you. Not for anything."

Bastila winced from residual pain as Revan helped her to her feet, wrapping his cloak around her. "Who did this to you?" he asked.

"Darth Oden's Force suppressor, Rydak," she answered.

Revan's face twisted with shock and rage, and a bolt of white lightning flew from his hand, gouging a smoking crater in the ground at his feet. "That's impossible. They're all dead."

Bastila put a hand under his chin and turned his face to her. "No, Revan. You missed one."

He quivered with helpless rage. "I never wanted anyone hurt by one of them ever again. Izayus and his daughter were the last, I swear they were! There were no others!"

"Don't blame yourself for what he did to me, Revan," Bastila admonished him. "You did everything in your power to make sure there were no Force suppressors left. It isn't your fault that Rydak somehow escaped."

"I swear, Bastila, when I find him, he will pay for what he's done to you."

"I can't use the Force because of his ability, but that does not mean I am defenseless. First however, I think I should find some clothes."

* * *

Mystified by the sight before him, Atton stared in after Kuryama. It was the strangest thing; he could see straight into the vast chamber through the doorway, but he couldn't put one finger beyond the threshold. At the threshold of the ornate doors, only the Nihil Pariahs and Kuryama could pass. The rest of them - Jedi, Sith, and scum alike - could not.

_This_ was the Treason Wall, Atton realized. It was where the barrier began that stretched through space in an enormous sphere around a small cluster of systems. He didn't even pretend to understand how it could be possible, but the evidence of it was right before his eyes. How Kuryama was ever going to destroy such a thing made his head spin.

After he and Jilon had dug Kuryama and Visas out from the rubble in the tunnels, the three Nihil women, Myr, Kal, and Siv, had led them into another passageway and to a long stairwell that led up into a large antechamber through a hidden door. They found themselves inside a sprawling structure divided internally into concentric rings. None but the Nihil and Kuryama could pass into the innermost circle. According to Visas' translation of Nihil words, the center of the Temple was a beacon to the substance of the Wall; a pocket, as it were, within the Wall itself where the Pariahs ministered to the trapped spirits making up the barrier.

Atton knew better than to ask what Kuryama was doing in there. He doubted even Visas knew, and was sure he wouldn't understand if she tried to explain. Some things he just had to accept as beyond him, and this was one.

Right from the get-go, Mira and Rigel set up a perimeter around entrances from the other parts of the temple, enlisting some of the more willing Jedi. Though early warning of intrusion was critical, this left Atton by himself in the middle of the unstable coalition; a position with which he was distinctly uncomfortable. The Sith Kasilov had not forgotten him and frequently cast hateful glances at him while pacing amongst the other Sith and Jedi, who knelt on guard around the doorway into the Inner Temple. He had drawn a few others to him, as well, including a stone-faced Jedi Sentinel and a pale Twi'lek woman. Instead of putting their minds to meditation or guard duty, the small, volatile group roamed freely.

Atton was worried. The last thing they needed right now was a civil war.

Looking for a Jedi ally, he singled out Jilon, who knelt closest to the open door with his back turned to him. He put a hand on the Jedi's shoulder and Jilon's eyes instantly snapped open and his hand went for his lightsabre.

"What is it?" he asked.

"We need to talk," Atton answered bluntly.

Cautious and wary, Jilon rose to his feet and stood face to face with Atton. "About what?"

Atton pointed beyond the open door. "The General. What's she to you?"

In a monotone, wooden voice, Jilon started talking. "She's a natural-born leader, strong in the Force, but fallen from the path of the li--"

Atton made a face. "Yeah, yeah, don't give me the Jedi crap. I want to know what you think of her, as a person. Assuming, of course, there _is_ a person under all that Jedi Code."

Indignation flashed momentarily through Jilon's eyes, but it was quickly replaced by his usual indifference. "I used to love her, if you must know, in my weaker times, back during the war. But we both moved on rather quickly. She seems the same as always, but more bitter.

"She could always get us to do things for her even when we were sure it would never work, or didn't believe in what we were doing. This time it's different; I _do_ believe that she's doing the right thing."

"You and me both. I need your help, Jilon."

"What is it?"

Atton cast a nervous glance to Kasilov. "I don't know if you've noticed, but this isn't exactly the most stable of alliances. Pretty soon here, I think things are going to blow up in our faces. With Kuryama preoccupied and Revan off Force-knows-where, there's practically nothing holding us together. Mutiny is inevitable. When that time comes, I want to know I won't have to put a blaster to your head to protect the General."

This elicited the desired response from Jilon. He saw anger - veiled and suppressed, but present nonetheless - in his eyes. "I would die before letting harm touch her. You have my word as a Jedi."

Atton twisted the knife. "The word of a Jedi? You'll pardon me if I'm not reassured. I'm used to seeing Jedi break their oaths to save their own asses. Maybe you should rephrase."

Jilon's blank expression spoke more eloquently than the most venomous glare. "Fine. You have my word as a fellow protector, as a man. I'll not abandon our cause or betray General Nari."

"Good."

Though pleased he had gotten across to the stodgy Jedi, the manipulation turned Atton's stomach. It seemed that no matter how hard he tried, it would never end. No matter how many times he murdered Jaq, he would never stay dead.

The only consolation he could give himself was that Jaq was for a purpose this time around, that he was manipulating in an attempt to save lives. But his words rang hollow in his mind, condemning him. That was an old and tired justification.

Hours passed, bringing no change. The uneasy status quo remained.

* * *

Spirits were all around her. Shimmering gossamer figures of blue light, they listlessly drifted about the chamber, whispering and breathing softly, just barely audible. What they spoke of Kuryama could only guess; ancient injustices, lost loves, or perhaps merely the mundane and simple things they missed from life. Walking among them, Kuryama could feel their sadness, longing, and regret as if it were her own. But wound beneath the surface, there was anger; a hopeless anger without an avenue of release.

Besides the spirits, the Inner Temple was dominated by a feeling of cosmic connection, making it seem like a link on some metaphysical chain; an analogy which Kuryama supposed was strikingly accurate. Substantiating her perception, she saw a hologram in the center of the chamber, displaying a sphere bound together by six glowing points.

"_This is the Wall,_" she heard the voices of the Nihil accompanying her explain. She no longer needed Visas to translate for her--the ancient language had been burned into her mind by the Rayaj.

"_Each of these six planets are part of the network that holds the spirits. They all flow through nodes such as this, where we minister to them._"

"What do you do for them?" Kuryama asked.

"_We remind them._"

"Remind them of what?"

"_They live no more. We live still, and remind them. Perhaps it cannot be adequately explained._"

The glowing sphere of interconnected nodes hovered before her, mocking.

Revan had said that the Treason Wall could be bent back on itself, as it existed on a different plane of existence, but he didn't know how such a thing could be done. To Kuryama that sounded suspiciously like an unconscious hint; something to which he'd been prone during the Mandalorian war. He didn't have answers, but could often somehow aid her anyway.

She thought on what she _did_ know: The Treason Wall spanned a vast area of space because it did not exist in a corporeal form. Six planets acted as physical nodes to allow the enslaved Pariahs to minister to their dead ancestors in whatever way was required. The spirits were traitors to the Nihil Empire held in subjugation by... what? That was the sticking point in her thoughts, what she couldn't get around. How exactly were these spirits held in their bondage?

Kuryama turned aside from the hologram and faced her companions. The distinction between those in blue and those in brown was almost meaningless in the presence of the congregation of spirits.

"I wish to talk to the spirits."

"_They will not speak to you._"

"They must."

"_To hear their voices aloud in communion is testing for us when we are in full company, even though we bear it in concert with each other. The spirits know this, and so will not speak with one individual alone, for that person would most likely be destroyed. Furthermore, you are not one of us, and do not see as we do. They will not speak to you._"

She balled her fists in frustration. "I don't care what happens to me! I stopped caring a long time ago!" Angrily, she tossed her hair back that had been falling over her eyes. "Let them do their worst, but I must speak to them!"

Kuryama had thrown caution to the winds. If she didn't succeed, the Nihil had already won. And she wouldn't come close unless she could speak to the spirits of the Wall.

Perhaps sensing her steadfastness, the spirits began to talk.

Thousands of voices joined into one, the monumental weight of their presence bore down on her with agonizing pain, searing into her very soul through the well of emptiness in her heart left by Malachor. It was the opposite of Malachor's life-rending agony; not the screams of the dying echoing through the Force, but dead voices mourning for life screaming through the Force's converse--the omnipresent domain of the dead that had had its claws in her for years.

Helpless before the onslaught, Kuryama fell to her knees. Inundated by the torment, she drew back on her only possible means of survival; the balance.

She took the pain into herself willingly, and in so doing pushed herself onto the brink, onto that razor-thin line between life and death that she had walked once before. As before, she felt herself lose contact with the world around her, and became little more than a spirit herself, tied to her body by a fragile line of consciousness. The Force came with her, separating from her physical body and creating an infinitesimal field of pure energy around her, protecting her.

Free from any physical constraints, Kuryama could manipulate the Force effortlessly. More importantly, Malachor's scar could no longer touch her. It was distinct and separate. She now knew it was no natural part of her, and was not tied to her in any way. She could have been rid of it at the first, when she entered the balance to pass through the Null field, if she had known. The echoes which reverberated through that scar no longer affected her. She was tranquil and calm, in perfect harmony with the Force.

Around her the spirits gathered. Kuryama was much closer to their plane, and could see them clearly, while her body and her companions were visible only as indistinct blurs. They resembled a conglomeration of several different species, blended over many millenia into a vaguely humanoid form. One came near her. By appearance, it was no different than any of the other uncountable spirits she stood among, but this particular spirit resonated deeply with her.

"Hello, Kess."

Reverently, the spirit bowed. _Master._

"I have something to say to you--to all of you."

_We will listen._

Collecting herself, summoning all the power she knew she possessed, Kuryama focused her energies into her singular gift - forming connections - and spoke to all who would listen. "You all are traitors to the Nihil Empire, yet in death you do their bidding. Why?"

Kess answered, but Kuryama could hear from her the voices of all the spirits speaking as one. _The Rayaj have power over the energy of death, and have bound us to keep others such as ourselves from entering holy territory. We have no choice in these matters._

"If you could be free, would you abandon this slavery of duty?"

_We can never be free._

"That is not true!" Kuryama insisted, feeling her fledgling connections strengthening little by little. "You are trapped here because you were born creatures without the Force and bound under the will of the Rayaj through the power of death. I offer to bring you into unity with the Force, to break your chains and release you from death's dominion!"

It can be bent back on itself, Revan had said, because it exists on a different plane of existence. That was the clue he'd given her without thinking; on this plane there was almost no limit to how far-reaching and change-affecting her Force connections could be.

The ruins of the Jedi Council had wanted to kill her in fear of her natural ability to form bonds, and Kreia had tried to exploit her gift to further her manipulative goals. If there was one thing Kreia had taught her it was to accept herself, bonds and all. They had given Atton and Mira a taste of the Force, allowed them to tap into her own well of Force powers. Now she had to give the spirits more than a taste--she had to make them return to the Force.

"There is no death, there is the Force." At least there was _some_ truth to be found in that code.

Finally, Kuryama heard the spirits respond. _Please help us._

In that instant, she felt her bonds with them solidify. Soul to soul, they were connected to her, and by extension, the Force. It was time for them to be free.

Nevertheless, even on a different plane of existence, where using the Force was almost effortless, this was a strain unlike anything she had ever imagined. The spirits occupying the node seemed to be tugging her in a million different directions. Kuryama felt like she was being ripped apart.

Just when it seemed she could take no more, she found herself alone. The spirits were gone.

Exhausted, she felt for the gossamer tether between herself and her body, and began pulling herself back into the world of the living.

* * *

Anxiously peering down a deserted hallway over the barrel of her blaster rifle, Mira knelt to check the proximity mine she'd laid a few feet from the entrance. Behind her, Rigel was resetting the sensors on a cluster of similar charges in the doorway itself, his blaster rifle hanging on a strap around his shoulder, not far from his hands should he need to use it. Her quick diagnostic revealed no problems with the mine, but she continued to crouch motionless, knowing better than to move while Rigel fiddled with the two mines only a few feet away. The empty expanse of the temple beckoned to her as she stared down the hallway.

Mira's trigger finger had been itchy ever since the tunnels. Not a good sign. Killing indiscriminately wasn't her thing, but every once in a while she'd have a nearly overwhelming urge to shoot something. This was one of those times. She glanced back at Rigel, wondering if he was feeling the same way.

Watching Lara die had done something to the formerly cheerful and upbeat bounty hunter. His sense of humor was all but gone and he barely ever talked, except to give concise and clipped status reports when asked.

"I'm done," Rigel announced.

"Good," Mira replied. "Let's finish up here."

Instead of gathering up to leave the deserted hallway, Rigel hesitated. "No, I want to stay for a bit. You can go on back to the others, I'll catch up." He was looking at the blaster in his hands in a way that made Mira distinctly uneasy.

"How did you end up here, Rigel?" she asked, feeling like if she didn't do something to distract him, he might do something very stupid. Mira didn't think he'd gotten to the point of suicide, but she'd been wrong before.

Rigel turned and gave her a haggard look and a bitterly cynical smile. "I'm here," he said, "because my hyperdrive screwed-up royally. We were supposed to be making a routine random jump. But somehow the hyperdrive computer sent us way off-target. I don't have any clue as to how it happened. My life has been going downhill from there.

"Me and Lara, all we wanted was to go our own way and take our next job. That's kind of all a bounty hunter ever thinks about. I don't even know what I'm doing here, in the middle of a Jedi war."

Mira heard herself sigh. "I know what that's like. To speak for myself, I'm getting a little tired of sitting on the sidelines while the Jedi do all the important things. But I've got this feeling that something's coming real soon. And we might just have our hands full if Atton's trouble with the Sith is any indication of the condition of this little army."

Rigel nodded.

"Revan had better get here soon," Mira muttered.

Back in the antechamber, the disorganized state of affairs alarmed Mira. Everyone was standing, most holding lightsabres either at the ready or activated, and everyone was casting suspicious glances and glares at everyone else. Shoving her way through, Mira saw why.

Three Jedi were dead. Or, more accurately, one Sith and two Jedi. Atton, Jilon, and Visas, all holding lightsabres, stood together, firmly blockading the entrance to the Inner Temple--though what good that would do Mira couldn't figure, since no one could enter anyway. The blue sabre in Atton's hands looked rather incongruous, but he appeared confident in himself. Mira wondered which of them had killed the Jedi on the floor.

Almost no one besides the three at the doorway even noticed her and Rigel, too intent were they on finding threats from within.

Before Mira could open her mouth, she felt a prickling sensation and turned around to see Dark Lord Revan himself coming up behind her, flanked by the red-robed Juhani and an odd figure dressed in the armor of a Nihil soldier but wearing no mask and a Jedi's cloak--Bastila, she realized. She clamped her mouth shut and got out of the way as Revan swept into the room, transfixing everyone with a hot glare. Lightsabres clicked off, Sith bowed and Jedi inclined their heads respectfully as he passed them.

Revan approached Atton expectantly, all but ignoring the bodies on the floor. "What happened, Rand?"

Atton didn't flinch. "Mutiny."

"I see," Revan remarked. To Mira, the Jedi and Sith present seemed to shrink slightly at the blunt acknowledgment, as if sensing Revan's frame of mind. He didn't need to utter a word to let them know that such things would not be tolerated.

"Where is Norryl," Jilon inquired.

Juhani answered. "She is dead."

In that moment, as relief and gratitude washed over Jilon's face, there was a sudden blinding flash from the Inner Temple. Pure white light cascaded from within, for an instant turning the entire chamber totally white. A wave of air rippled through the gathered crowd as the intensity of the flash passed and mellowed to a mild glow.

Tentatively, Atton put a hand to the open doorway and was astonished to encounter no resistance. Immediately, Visas rushed in, followed closely by Atton and Jilon. They emerged alongside the robed and masked figures of the Nihil Pariahs, carrying an insensate Kuryama by the shoulders. On her face was a smile of peace and fulfillment.

The Treason Wall was no more. The glow from the Inner Temple gradually subsided, like the tide being drawn back out to sea.

Mira pressed in for a closer look at Kuryama - a difficult task considering Visas and the Pariahs stalwartly kept everyone away from her. Physically, she looked inhumanly exhausted, but the peaceful smile on her comatose face put Mira at ease even while she wondered what had happened inside the Inner Temple to put Kuryama in such a state.

For the most part, Mira stayed silent while Revan led the group out of the temple. But she was unable to hold her tongue when they reached the ravaged courtyard outside, where amidst burning craters, scattered limbs and body parts, smoking debris and rubble, the _Ebon Hawk_ and close to a dozen ships had landed. At the base of _Hawk_'s boarding ramp stood the skeletal rust-red figure of HK-47, beckoning to them.

She gaped at the sight before her. "Okay, there must be some kind of explanation for this."

Revan smiled. "While we were waiting at my stronghold, I had some technicians make modifications to all the ships that would allow the two droids to control them remotely. Some of them thought it impossible, that they would not be capable of handling such a task, but these are no ordinary droids."

"Interjection: An assassin droid of unrivaled sophistication such as myself could not possibly be considered an 'ordinary droid,' Master. I told this to your technicians, but they were unimpressed."

Mira rolled her eyes. "Good old HK, I guess." She could've sworn she saw the assassin droid tilt his head in satisfaction. She turned another question to Revan. "Have a brilliant plan to break the blockade?"

"Yes, actually. A last resort that I would have preferred not to use. But without Darth Oden we may have no choice."

"Care to clue me in?"

"Just a few mementos from the Star Forge."

* * *

There was no blockade. No Nihil ships awaited them in orbit, only floating debris from the earlier battle. The reason was so obvious Revan couldn't believe he hadn't considered it before. With the Treason Wall down, the Nihil Fleet would be converging around Malayvin to protect the seat of power in their empire and the Sacred Saint.

Revan cursed. "This is not good."

Juhani cocked her head quizzically at him. "There will be no costly battle to break free of this planet. Why is this not good?"

"It means the final battle is going to be this much harder. I don't think we'll have sufficient forces to make the decisive breakthrough."

Leaving the _Hawk_'s controls to his droid co-pilot, Revan got up from his seat and paced with Juhani by his side.

The end was coming, and his forces were dangerously depleted. This quick insertion and guerrilla raid had spiraled out of control and cost them dearly. They had lost Darth Oden's fist of destruction to a betrayal and almost half their number were killed in the fighting. All that was left of the last alliance of the Jedi and the Sith were a handful of individuals and some Nihil outcasts.

Revan stopped. He'd overlooked some of his options.

Rapidly, he made his way to the main hold and activated the communications array from the briefing computer. With typed a few quick commands he was through to his asteroid stronghold on the edge of the former Null field. It was patchy, but the signal was established.

"Lord Revan?"

"Commander Jalek, it's time to abandon the stronghold and take to the _Gauntlet_ and _Righteous Judgment_. These are my orders. Man the ships and leave the base, the end is upon us."

"As you command, Lord Revan."

Revan hung his head as the blue hologram of the Sith officer faded. _Gauntlet_ was an old Interdictor and seriously undermanned, but its gravity well generator was a card he had to play. As was the small destroyer _Righteous Judgment_. The two warships and the remaining personnel at his base were the last forces he had.

They were at the end of their rope. This war was consuming them all.

Still deeply troubled but slightly comforted by the fact that events were finally drawing towards their conclusion, Revan left the holopad and made for the infirmary.

The hallway outside the infirmary was lined by the silent Nihil Pariahs, for within lay Kuryama, still unconscious from her ordeal inside the Temple Of Sacrifice. Beside her on another cot was Bastila, freshly dressed in new robes and getting some demanded rest.

Revan entered quietly. Bastila was in a light sleep, and awoke when he sat on the foot of her bed.

"How are you feeling," he asked.

"I feel like I'm facing the Star Forge, except this time there is no Darth Malak, no figurehead for me to lash out at," she answered, staring at the ceiling.

"Is there any hope left?" Revan asked, not expecting an answer.

Bastila sat up on the bed and clasped his hands in hers. She looked him straight in the eye. "Prophecy does not give us all the answers, Calum. No matter what happens, never give up hope."


	11. Monochromatic Stains

Waking up was a pleasant sensation. The scar, the wound in her soul, was gone. Though she had regained her connection to the Force close to four months ago on Peragus, she'd always carried the faintest remnant of that emptiness within her. The Jedi Masters, Kreia, and even she herself, had never believed it would heal, but it had. It was no longer a part of her, having returned to the void from which it came.

Visas was nearby, keeping vigil over her. Kuryama smiled at this, grateful for the Miraluka's presence.

Stretching stiff muscles, she sat up. Visas was immediately at her side, asking if she needed any assistance.

"No, Visas, I'm fine. Thank you." Swinging her legs off the side of the bed, Kuryama got to her feet and exited the infirmary. Outside in the hallway, the Nihil Pariahs lining the walls each touched fingers to their foreheads as she passed them on her way to the cockpit, where she found Revan, Bastila, and the HK assassin droid.

Bastila nodded in greeting. "It's good to see you awake, Kuryama."

Kuryama acknowledged her with a quick nod of her own.

"Why aren't we traveling?" she asked, casting a critical eye out the hastily-patched cockpit window, where she could see the thin star field.

Revan answered without looking up. "We're waiting for reinforcements. I've called in everyone from my base. Anything less and our defeat is certain." In a lower voice, he added, "Perhaps not even then."

Before she could respond, the _Hawk_'s sensors began sounding a proximity alarm. A host of frigate-sized Nihil ships began dropping out of hyperspace before them. Six in all, they were the approximate size of a Republic Hammerhead-class capital ship--small by Nihil standards, but a sight larger than the _Ebon Hawk_. Puzzlingly, they made no threatening moves, just sat in space. Communications began picking up a hailing signal.

Genuinely surprised, Revan opened the channel and a brown-robed Nihil officer appeared on the comm screen.

"_Sister Kess sends us. I am Salus, representing the Hand Of Liberation. We are here to pledge loyalty to the Master._"

Kuryama could hardly believe her ears. She knew Kess had been speaking the truth when she said there were others of the Nihil who wished to be free from the domination of the Sacred Empire, but the thought that the resistance could be so wide-spread, and well-equipped, had never entered her mind.

Speaking in the Nihil's language, she answered the hail. "My name is Kuryama. I have destroyed the Treason Wall. How may I know that your pledge is sincere?" Beside her, Visas started at hearing the hissing, wailing speech of the Nihil coming from Kuryama's throat.

The man on the screen touched a finger to the forehead of his mask--a motion Visas echoed unconsciously. "_Sister Kess spoke these words to us, and said that they would have meaning to you and convey our truthfulness: 'There is no death, there is the Force.'_"

Kuryama sighed inwardly with relief. There was only one way they could know the words; if Kess's spirit had come to them through the Force and told them, as he said.

Besides, she thought, if their intentions were hostile, there was very little keeping them from destroying the battered handful of ships right then and there. That they were likely unaware of Revan's last resort measures was irrelevant.

"I would welcome your allegiance, Salus, as would sisters Kal, Myr, and Siv."

Salus bowed. "_We are at your command._"

"What does he want?" Revan asked, reminding Kuryama that aside from Visas, only she understood their speech.

"They're a resistance group. Kess told me there were some within the Nihil Empire who fought to end the tyranny. For destroying the Treason Wall, freeing the spirits of their ancestors, they have pledged loyalty to me."

"Good. We can use all the help we can get."

More proximity alerts sounded. Two ships of a Sith design dropped out of hyperspace and began hailing them.

"Commander Jalek of the _Gauntlet_, standing ready to assist."

Revan immediately responded, before the commander opened fire on their newfound allies. "This is Lord Revan. Stand down and hold your fire. Nihil ships are friendlies. Repeat, Nihil ships are friendlies." He looked to Kuryama, who nodded her thanks.

Jalek didn't question the command. "Affirmative, Lord Revan. Standing by for your orders."

Revan and Kuryama shared a look that went back years and years. A look that said they both knew they were headed for the beginning of the end.

"We're going to Malayvin."

* * *

As one, all eight ships exited hyperspace. The rebel frigates formed a wedge in front of the larger Sith ships. The destroyer, _Righteous Judgment_, bristled with turbolaser cannons and beam weapons, torpedo launchers and tractor generators. Short of manpower, over the years, Revan had converted most of the weapon systems to droid and computer control, making _Judgment_ almost as effective as a fully-equipped warship. The massive _Gauntlet_ lumbered behind the others. Half again as big as _Righteous Judgment_ and several times larger than the frigates, the Interdictor and its heavy shields, heavy armor, and experimental gravity well generator kept its menacing figure in pace with the others, ready to unleash its power on the enemy.

Assembled around the blue and green orb of Malayvin were battle-group after battle-group of shimmering silver ships, their crouching, crab-like profiles hanging in space hungrily, waiting to devour the insignificant threat approaching.

For an instant, a sparkling field was visible passing from frigate to frigate in front of the two Sith ships--the rebels locking shields. Not a moment too soon were they, as immediately the band of shielding was hit by a wave of blistering cannon fire from the nearest Nihil battle-group. A ribbon of explosions erupted before them.

Reacting, the opposing forks of the _Gauntlet_'s nose section began to glow with an energy buildup. When it reached its pinnacle, a nearly imperceptible wave passed through space around the two Sith ships and their allies. A glowing vortex formed, cradled in the _Gauntlet_'s nose section. Though comparatively weak, the artificial gravity well was capable of interfering with hyperspace travel, and Revan hoped it would confuse the Nihil's long-range targeting systems and give his ships a chance to close the distance before they were obliterated by a wall of weapons fire. He couldn't possibly throw up a Force shield large enough to encompass his whole battle-group as he had at the Treason Wall.

The rebel frigates, with their locked shields, sped forward, their commanders eager for first blood against their tyrannical oppressors. The gap closed rapidly, and soon ships on both fronts opened fire regardless of their scrambled sensors. Scintillating waves of red and green turbolaser fire erupted from _Righteous Judgment_ in a wide spread pattern. The frigates in front turned loose their own energy cannons and poured plasma into the vacuum.

It was nearly impossible for them to miss. With so many ships ahead of them, even if the shots missed their intended targets, they rarely missed entirely. Up close, the greater majority of the enemy ships couldn't make shots at the small battle-group forcing its way in, the danger of hitting their own forces too great.

As they drew ever closer, _Gauntlet_ and _Righteous Judgment_ concentrated their fire on an opposing cruiser, bearing down their heavy beam weapons and turbolaser cannons on its weakened shields. The weak attacks of an ailing Republic ship against those shields were one thing, but the full fury of two Sith warships was something entirely different. Under the punishment, the Nihil ship's defensive systems buckled and gave way. Red beams sliced through the prow, igniting a sheet of explosions from stem to stern. In one instant, the ship was vaporized.

Burning debris was hurled into nearby ships, flaring against their shields and further weakening them. Like a hungry predator, _Righteous Judgment_ pounced on the injured, swamping the wounded ships with a rain of fire that left several as little more than burning, lifeless hulks.

Not to be cowed, the Nihil ships bit back vengefully. A pair of rebel frigates detonated under blazing cannon fire from their enemies. The locked shield splintered, dividing the remaining four. More ominously, a cloud of single-fighter craft began to stream from the hangars of a nearby Nihil carrier. Like a swarm of deadly insects they buzzed around the two Sith ships, harassing them with hundreds of energy bombs and pestering plasma fire.

Dozens of tiny explosions blossomed forth from the cloud of fighters as automated turrets cut into their numbers, those flying too close to the _Gauntlet_'s gravity well lost flight control and crashed into one another, or damaged fighters hit the sides of the warships in suicidal plummets.

_Righteous Judgment_'s shields buckled on the forward section, exposing a wide swath of hull to murderous plasma fire. Energy bombs tore smoking holes in its armor, breaching the hull integrity of the ship, which drew the fighters to the wounded area like flies to a carcass. With the five other allied ships embroiled in their own problems, none of them could pull any of the heat from the beleaguered destroyer. The determined Nihil fighter squadrons attacked again and again, their repeated assaults doing critical damage to _Righteous Judgment_'s forward section.

Despite the damage, the six ships made an extra push and broke through the battle-group, a clear descent into the atmosphere just ahead of them. The heavy fire from the orbiting Nihil ships was reduced as they dropped through the upper layers of the planet's atmosphere, and the fighter attacks dropped off completely as the turbulence became too severe to conduct their operations. A few Nihil ships gave chase, but ship-to-ship combat was nearly impossible in the fires of reentry.

Miles below was the vast city of Shatoriem and Xharang Palace, the seat of power in the Nihil Empire and home of Sacred Saint Akar Xiylehn.

Surface-to-air defenses lit up as the ships broke through the clouds and came within sight of the great city. The thunderous noise of their firing was warning enough to the citizens of the city to take cover, and pedestrians by the thousands fled the streets for shelters.

Up in the sky, the anti-aircraft fire was little more than an annoyance to the six battleships. Much of it dissolved harmlessly against shields or ricocheted off tough armor. _Gauntlet_ had deactivated its gravity well generator and flew point, protecting the wounded _Righteous Judgment_ from retaliatory strikes, while both of them fired back at the ground turrets. Around the Sith ships, the rebel frigates formed a loose four-pointed ring and engaged the ships that had followed them.

Explosions, fire, and multi-colored flashes filled the blue sky above Shatoriem while the battle raged.

* * *

Kuryama fought vertigo as the _Whitecap_ plummeted from the _Gauntlet_'s fighter bay, cloaking field engaged and running on its highest stealth mode. Inertial dampeners were disabled, which made each sudden bank, dip, and roll felt in one's bowels.

Rigel and Atton had shut everyone out of the cockpit, insisting they be allowed to do their jobs without backseat drivers getting in the way, leaving her effectively locked in the cargo compartment with Visas, Jilon, Mira, Juhani, Revan, and two of the three Nihil women. Another six Jedi and ten Nihil Pariahs were to follow once they had made their initial landing.

Kuryama's heart pounded like a hammer in her chest, every breath rasped deafeningly loud in her ears, and her insides felt like they were trying to crawl out her throat. She hadn't been this apprehensive before a battle since her first of the Mandalorian wars. The first nightmarish day when so many friends died in front of her.

Sitting beside her, Visas squeezed her hand, reminding her of who she had to be. This was unlike her. She was Sel'Qouoya, the General, and she would face this battle like any other. Through the gloom of the partial lighting inside the cargo hold, she gave Visas an encouraging smile back.

There was one other passenger in the cargo hold. Surrounded by six cube-like devices, the rusty, skeletal frame of HK-47 squatted, connected to each by a cornucopia of wires. They glowed eerily and made a soft hum, blinking erratically in tune with random twitches of the droid's limbs.

The unusual setup was one of Revan's secret weapons: The ghost squadrons. Weapons of terror he had discovered on the Star Forge and kept secret from Malak.

Inside each of the devices was an alien brain held in suspended animation which aided, and in turn was aided by, the compact machine, to create semi-corporeal Force shades in the form of ancient Rakatan fighter craft. Each machine could generate ten of the nearly indestructible ghost ships, which were deadly weapons at the hands of an artificial intelligence such as the Hunter-Killer 47 droid. He couldn't handle all six at full capacity at once, but even half effected devastating results. The ghost ships buzzed around the cloaked _Whitecap_, absorbing flak fire and eradicating ground forces, which by now had begun assembling on the streets.

Their destination was a landing platform inside the heavily-guarded grounds of Xharang Palace, mid-level, close to the throne room, where they hoped to find the Sacred Saint.

They listened to the sounds of explosions, cannon fire, and whistling aircraft as the _Whitecap_ flew on, invisible and unnoticed, escorted by nightmarish demon-ships that laid waste to anything in their path.

A sudden bump shook the ship and it jerked to a halt. Kuryama had to keep a tight grip on her stomach until the unexpected movement passed.

Rigel's voice rang out over the intercom. "Okay, we've landed. You guys had better get out quickly, I don't know how long until they figure out we're here and we've got another ship coming in right behind us."

The cargo bay door cracked open and all eight of them jumped out onto the landing platform beneath the ship.

Kuryama took a quick look around. Rigel hadn't even extended the landing gear, just dragged the ship to a halt on the pad, placing enormous faith in the strength of its hull not to crack or buckle. It was disorienting looking at the rapidly closing cargo door and seeing the inside of the ship but not the outside. _Whitecap_'s cloaking system was extremely effective--and no doubt highly illegal. The landing pad was small, ringed by turrets that currently were firing crazily at the phantom ships that buzzed around the invisible _Whitecap_, controlled by HK-47 still inside the ship. She and Revan quickly silenced the turrets with a few disabling shots of Force lightning.

The second transport was coming in hot, under fire from the ground and the air. Kuryama clicked on her radio. "HK, see if you can't take some of the heat off the second ship. They're in trouble."

"Acknowledgment: Affirmative. Acquiring new targets."

Swerving like a pair of hawks, two of the ghost-like fighters broke off from their escort duty and hurtled toward the beleaguered transport. They impacted directly with several Nihil fighter craft, which were torn apart in the collisions, and took up flanking positions on either side of the transport, targeting ground emplacements with devastating distortion waves.

The transport didn't even touch down on the landing pad to disgorge its load of soldiers. Jedi, Sith, and Nihil outcasts poured onto the platform.

It took Mira only a few seconds to slice the door leading into the palace. Once the doors opened, she raised her blasters and fired at the first targets that presented themselves. A gaggle of white-masked figures in shapeless robes screamed at the intruders in their alien tongue and were quickly silenced. One by one in rapid succession, lightsabres ignited in the hands of the Sith and Jedi.

The lot of them fit easily inside the wide halls inside the palace. Immediately, Mira began consulting a small computer she'd borrowed from Rigel for navigational aid. The group began to move.

Kuryama was nearly blinded by the omnipresent sense of threat that emanated from everything around her. Her Force perceptions were all but useless. Beyond the hum and glow of her lightsabre, she was forced to rely on her eyes and ears.

A door opened. One flash of white armor was all she needed to see.

"Ambush!" she heard Mira yell as Nihil soldiers streamed into the hall and activated energy blades of their own. Eagerly, some ran forward to meet the sabres of their enemy while others hung back and fired from the cover of the columns that lined the walls. Mira and many of the Nihil Pariahs did likewise, and fired back from cover of their own.

As she did when facing such large numbers, Kuryama threw up a weak Force shield to help deflect the horde of energy blasts pouring through the hall as she charged alongside the other Jedi and Sith. Her lightsabre crackled and flashed as she hit the first of her enemies. With a powerful stroke, knocked aside a Nihil officer's black energy blade, sliced off his arm with a swift uppercut, and dove into the thick of the battle.

Behind and around her, numerous duels broke out instantly. Revan took on enemies three or four at a time with a specialized dueling blade. His arms moved like a whirlwind keeping his foes at bay whilst simultaneously pressing his own attack. Visas and Juhani played off each other effectively, drawing heat from some of the others who fought their own battles furiously. In the back, standing stoically near Mira, Jilon picked off challengers who attempted to attack those with blasters. He swung his lightsabre expertly to block energy bolts that came too close and chopped the limbs off Nihil soldiers who threatened.

Kuryama was only dimly aware of her allies, lost in her own world of move and counter-move. Every motion of her lightsabre or hand was calculated, either to strike out or pull back in defense. She hurled knots of concussive Force energy to break difficult parries, struck mercilessly with her lightsabre at the slightest mistakes made by her enemies, committed her entire being into the battle--anything less was inviting a quick death.

She heard the scream of a Sith who fell to the ground, trying desperately to hold his face together, and was promptly run through by three Nihil. A Jedi toppled back with most of his neck vaporized from a lateral swipe he had failed to block. Two Nihil outcasts were decapitated by well-placed energy bolts.

There was something different about these Nihil soldiers that made them more deadly than any Kuryama had fought before. They were as proficient as any self-respecting Sith disciple, and she was forced to respect their prowess when she barely avoided a seeking thrust from a Nihil blade that would have sliced her stomach open. Visas exploded through the crush to impale Kuryama's attacker while she parried desperately.

The pain in her abdomen from the grazing swipe distracted her, and she was forced to fall back on the defensive, her attacks losing their focus. Mira was yelling something about reinforcements and casualties, but her voice was indistinct and distant. Kuryama was aware only of how much harder it was becoming to hold her own.

More death screams sounded, and Kuryama was forced to give ground.

Fighting as hard as she could was not enough. Faster than they could kill them, Nihil reinforcements flooded the wide corridor.

In an effort to buy herself precious seconds and room to fight, Kuryama attempted to throw back her attackers with a strong Force push, but astoundingly, she found herself flying backwards from a reciprocal attack. She landed hard on the stone floor, the wind driven out of her. Visas was immediately beside her with her lightsabre, holding back the Nihil to allow her time to get back on her feet. She did so painfully, trying to fill a vacuum with each halting breath.

She looked around and saw bodies all around her. They were not Nihil bodies. The cracked mask of Kal stared up at her among the corpses of eight other Pariahs and four Jedi. Five Jedi; the fifth body was slumped up against a column, sitting in a pool of blood underneath a thick red smear on the side of the column. His familiar short brown hair caused her heart to leap into her throat.

Momentarily oblivious to the battle raging around her, Kuryama dove for the dead Jedi and took his face in her hands, one look enough to confirm her fears; Jilon was dead. A sob was all she could spare for the man who'd helped her find her courage so many years ago, a man she'd loved.

Kuryama turned back to the battle, bringing all her anger and hurt to the surface. As she did, lightning crackled between her fingertips and from her arms to the floor. Indulging in a moment of pristine hatred, Kuryama cast forth all her fury at the Nihil who were so roundly defeating her friends and allies.

All at nearly the same time, a dozen bodies dropped dead to the floor.

Once again on even footing, the Jedi and Sith fought back with ferocity. No quarter was taken or given until the Nihil remained as nothing but corpses; broken flesh and mangled bodies spread over the floor like an obscene banquet.

Her hate purged, Kuryama felt empty. Jilon was dead, yet another casualty of a war that would not die even after twenty thousand years. She hardly even noticed the uncharacteristically elaborate armor in which most of the Nihil bodies were attired, missed their significance entirely. Revan said something about royal guards that she barely heard. Kuryama couldn't pull herself back into attention until she felt Visas beside her, sensed her like a guardian spirit.

Of twenty-two Jedi, Sith, and outcasts, only nine remained. But neither had the Nihil been shown mercy. Over thirty lay dead, most in several pieces.

"We need to move now," Revan ordered, his coldly impersonal words carrying the weight of duty.

They encountered little other resistance, soon coming to a magnificent antechamber dominated by a set of tall doors that looked to be cut from black glass. They were elegant in their simplicity, an expanse of polished crystal broken only by the crack of the doors themselves that ran up the middle--not even a handle to disrupt its satin blackness.

But they were not alone. Standing before the obsidian doors, their ghost-like masks seeming to float amidst the darkness against the doors, were the ominous figures of two Rayaj clerics. To the Jedi their presence was like feeling a hollow in the fabric of existence.

By the time she felt the wave of paralyzing fear start to come over her, Kuryama was already acting. She knew how to fight it this time. She cast a net of tranquility over herself and her companions, counteracting the irrational fear the Rayaj would have preyed upon.

The two clerics hissed and screeched in frustration, pulling more power into their webs.

Acting instinctively, from the void, Kuryama threw her arms forward. Instantly, twin beams of pure blue light shot from her hands, hitting the two Rayaj squarely. Even she was unsure of just what was happening, but the horrifying screams of the masked clerics told her it was working. She could almost sense Kess beside her, lending her strength.

The blue light extinguished and the Rayaj clerics fell to the floor, their bodies smoking.

The doors that lay before them could be none other than the entrance to the Sanctuary, the throne room of the Sacred Saint.

* * *

"I already told you: I don't trust you or any of the other _Jedi_ to do this right. Because while you've been out practicing your ominous and authoritative routine, I've been living the deadly life of a bounty hunter. This is stuff I grew up around and worked with my whole life. Guns, explosives, poison gas--you name it and I've used it. So don't tell me whether or not I'm capable of handling this, because I've put up with you for as long as I intend to."

Mira's outburst was to be expected. Revan had been opposed to her involvement in this mission from the start, but she refused to allow anyone but herself handle the most crucial of tasks; setting off a canister of weaponized tranquilizer gas in order to capture their objective. The gas was strong enough to put a herd of banthas down in less than a minute, to hear her tell it. It was her equipment, and she insisted it had to be deployed properly or it would have about the same effect as harmless water vapor.

Given that Revan knew practically nothing first-hand about the Sacred Saint of the Nihil, there was evidence in abundance to assume him extremely dangerous, and the last thing he wanted to do was let things out of his hands at such a critical time. He was haunted also by the total blindness of his sixth sense, his innate ability as a prophet - a true prophet - that seemed to have died within him.

"If you go in alone, there will be no way for us to assist if things go wrong," Revan protested, weighing the potential cost and benefit of the current situation in his mind.

Mira was unimpressed by his argument. She crossed her arms and tilted her shoulders impatiently. "News flash: If anyone comes with me, they'll get hit by the same stuff that's supposed to take out His Excellency the Pope. I'm the only one who I've hopped up on a secret concoction of drugs long enough to render me immune to the gas. Anyone else might as well drop dead. I'm doing this, and that's final."

Knowledge had always been the key to Revan's success, and what made him such a formidable presence in person. He had to admit that in this case, Mira had him outdone. This was _her_ area of expertise, not his. Refusing her was impossible, not to mention foolhardy beyond belief.

Revan nodded his acquiescence. "Very well."

Encompassing one of the massive doors with a kinetic Force net, Revan slowly inched it open and Mira slipped through the crack, squeezing her equipment through in front of her.

Once inside, Mira stifled a gasp of wonder at the otherworldly splendor of the chamber in which she found herself.

So massive was it that it seemed plenty large enough to hold two Galactic regulation-sized calcio fields, and whether or not it was simply perspective, Mira had to admit the effect was impressive. All throughout the enormous chamber were an intricate series of parabolic pillars laid out in enormous designs upon the floor. A fifteen-foot band of white marble ran along the perimeter of the outer wall, strange characters and depictions of scenes carved into its milky surface. And despite the sunlight that streamed in from all sides, the chamber felt like a cave.

Quickly, she set to work. She dropped her pack onto the floor and pulled out a vacuum-sealed rubber hose, which she fastened to a fitting on her wrist-launcher, whose payload she had removed and swapped for a dispersal unit. A quick check of the _rugba _ball-sized canister that contained the deadly chemical agent and she slung the pack over her shoulders, making sure there was enough slack for the hose to reach all the way to her wrist.

As ready as she would ever be, Mira stood and looked around.

As she turned, she came face to face with a terrifying white mask whose empty eye-sockets stared at her like holes into the underworld.


	12. Fragments Of Faith

_A/N: Contains a scene of torture. Be warned._

* * *

Despite being startled, Mira forced herself not to bolt or freeze. Instead, she raised her arm and fired a short burst of the nerve agent at the menacing figure who stood no more than five paces from her. The rancid odor of the colorless gas made her wince but had no ill effect on her, although she was unsure whether or not it was affecting the Nihil. She fired again, eliciting a menacing hiss from the unseen man behind the demonic mask.

Her heart was pounding as she hit him with another blast, then another, and another. The stench was suffocating. Finally, after Mira had discharged enough gas to put a rancor under, the Nihil collapsed. She took a few deep breaths to settle her racing pulse and leaned over to inspect the catch.

This one was different from the ones they'd run into in the tunnels or out in the antechamber. His mask was far more ornate than any she'd seen before, archaic patterns etched in red on the white surface of the two symmetrical halves that covered a face unseen like a twisted, mutilated human skull. The eye- and mouth-holes were warped from innocuous openings to terrifying voids surrounded by arcane symbols, seeming ready suck in anything that came too close. The Nihil's majestic robes, rather than being pure black as were those of most high-ranking officers, were of dark blue and gray, with more of the inscrutable characters inscribed in black along the edges and seams.

It could be none other than Sacred Saint Akar Xiylehn.

Again working quickly, Mira disassembled her impromptu gas gun, stuffing the unwieldy equipment back in her pack, and got on her radio.

"Alright, I've got him. Open the door for me."

When the obsidian door began inching open, Mira was suddenly struck by the thought that it had all been too easy. No way should it have been so simple. A lifetime of bounty hunting had taught her to recognize the subtle signs of a job gone wrong. This one stank.

Warily, she grabbed the Nihil approximately by the shoulders and dragged him through the door with her. "Done. Easiest job I ever had."

Revan raised an eyebrow. He was impressed. "Job's not over yet, Mira. Now we have to get out of here."

"Yeah, speaking of that..." Mira trailed off, meeting Juhani's eyes and seeing her own concern mirrored in the Cathar's golden irises. Something was undeniably _wrong_. She held up a hand for silence and listened.

Whatever it was, Juhani's more sensitive ears picked it up first, for suddenly she leaped into action, diving for Revan. In a split second, an explosion rocked the antechamber, tearing a wide hole in the wall and spewing chunks of debris and burning shrapnel into the room.

There were cries of pain from some who were injured by the flying projectiles. But most horrifying was Juhani's scream. She'd knocked Revan to the ground and covered him with her body just barely in time to protect him from a murderous shower of shrapnel. He suffered a few superficial wounds, but she had taken the full brunt of the blast. Twisted pieces of glowing hot metal were embedded in her back, arms, and legs, everything exposed to the shock wave. It was impossible to tell how deep were most of her wounds, or if they were fatal, but her high-pitched, rasping screams of agony were bone-chilling.

Mercifully covered only by a shower of dirt, Mira picked herself up and stared into the breach, not wanting to believe what her eyes told her, but knowing it was the truth. Beyond a hole that reached through fifteen feet of wall, a force of easily a hundred Nihil soldiers was seconds away from charging into the gap and overwhelming them.

The others were slowly getting to their feet. Revan was instinctively trying to heal Juhani, but everything he did seemed to make her worse.

Mira screamed at them. "Get up! Get out of here! Go! Take the Saint, call Rigel, and go!" No one who saw the look in her eyes argued with her.

Though she was bleeding from wounds of her own, Kuryama hefted Akar onto her shoulders and told Visas to help Revan with Juhani, whose screams had been reduced to helpless moans. Only three other Sith were left; Myr lay dead on the floor.

As soon as they got moving, Mira snatched a pair of thermal detonators from her belt and charged for the blasted opening, racing the Nihil soldiers to be the first into the recently-carved makeshift tunnel. Just as she reached the threshold, she thumbed their activation switches and hurled the grenades into the breach.

"Die you sons of--!"

Twin explosions cut off her words. The heat of the blast disintegrated much of the already weakened wall-structure and a huge section collapsed through the floor. Mira was sucked down with the debris, along with all the Nihil soldiers.

Revan could not spare so much as one moment to consider Mira and her fate; for Juhani, alternately hissing, crying, and moaning with inconsolable pain, was growing weaker with each passing second. He also didn't expect Mira's desperate measures to hold the Nihil for long.

They had accomplished their objective - at a heavy price - and now needed nothing more than to escape with their lives. As he and Visas struggled along carrying the horribly wounded Cathar between them, they left a thick trail of blood behind them.

"Rigel! Atton! Get the _Whitecap_ here _now!_" Revan screamed into his radio.

Rigel was quick with his reply. "We'll be there as fast as we possibly can, Revan."

"Listen," Revan continued, "there's not time to make the platform. They'll probably have it surrounded anyway. Here's what I want you to do..." While he and the others ran as fast they could down the wide halls, he gave Rigel his instructions.

They did not have far to go. In minutes, up ahead of them, another hole was blasted through the walls of the palace, from the outside in. There was a crash and the forward section of the familiar cargo yacht poked its way through. The forward hatch popped open and Atton Rand - a welcome sight to Revan's eyes if ever there was one - leaned out and waved frantically for them to hurry.

Neither Revan nor any of the other survivors needed encouragement to climb aboard.

In moments, Rigel swung the ship out of the breach, not even waiting for the hatch to shut completely, and Atton reactivated the stealth systems. Like a phantom, the _Whitecap_ rejoined the furious skies above Shatoriem to make good its escape.

* * *

_Two of them were in the living room, a red one and a yellow one. From where she was perched at the top of the stairs, she could see and hear Mama and Papa pleading with the two men dressed from neck to toe in their shiny, colored armor._

_"We've given you everything we have!" said Papa._

_"Well, that's too bad, isn't it?" the red one chuckled. She could imagine his smirk behind the visor of his unreadable helmet._

_"Please! Why can't you just leave us alone!" Mama begged, sobbing. "We're no threat to you or your clan! Please!"_

_The red one took a step toward Mama. She cowered in fear behind Papa, who must have been just as terrified as her but tried to keep a brave face for Mama._

_The yellow one snorted in disgust. "This isn't worth our time."_

_"Maybe you're right," the red one agreed, halting not more than three steps from Mama and Papa. Suddenly, he threw his mailed fist at Papa, breaking his nose and crumpling him to the floor. Mama screamed and the yellow one grabbed her by the arm, wrenching it cruelly until her shoulder was pulled from its socket._

_Her feet were rooted to the floor and her hands glued to the railing as she clutched it in a death grip. She watched in riveted horror as the two men brutally beat on Mama and Papa until they lay silent and still on the living room floor, broken and bleeding. She was too scared to make a noise louder than the tears sliding down pale cheeks from her wide green eyes. Red hair clung to the side of her head from cold sweat that had broken out all over her body._

_When the two men were done, the red one craned his neck and sighed satisfactorily. "That was refreshing."_

_The yellow one nodded his head. "Let's search the house. See if they've been hiding anything. Food, ale, drugs, kids--it doesn't really matter what, but I know they're hiding something. We'll burn the place afterwards."_

_They started up the stairs..._

A flash of pain suddenly jolted Mira's mind into consciousness. Her first visual sensation was disorienting until she realized she was staring into a blinding light with her fiery red hair all over her eyes. Squeezing her lids shut to cut down the glare, Mira slowly took stock of the rest of her body.

Muscles throbbed with pain and soreness, playing to a tune set by the pounding ache in her skull. Her neck felt slightly numb beneath a collar that held her head down, and her hands and feet were bound securely with abrasive metal cuffs. The band was gone from her head, freeing her substantial mane of thick hair, and judging by the cool touch of the surface beneath her shoulder-blades, she could tell she was at the very least stripped to the waist.

The brightness subsided somewhat, and Mira shook her head to get the hair from her eyes. Her neck, like everything else, stung in protest to the movement. When opened, her eyes were met by the sight of a blood-red mask hanging mere inches from her face. She started involuntarily and was suddenly gripped by a spasm of pain shooting through her whole body.

The hidden face above her chuckled in amusement with a voice that sounded distinctly feminine. The sound of it made her skin crawl.

"Uncomfortable yet?" the voice behind the mask asked.

Mira's surprise that she could understand the woman's words was cut short by an inescapable agony. It was a homogeneous, biting pain that gave her visions of being covered by microscopic creatures all gnawing at her flesh.

Despite her valiant efforts, she couldn't keep her grip on her tongue, and let loose with a visceral scream.

When the wave of pain passed as suddenly as it had come, Mira gulped the air gratefully.

"Who are you?" she forced from between teeth gritted in residual pain. Her body tried to double over when the flesh of her stomach twisted violently, the restraints on her wrists and ankles scraping her skin raw as she thrashed. She was forced to lie flat while lurid bruises spread over her chest, her skin still twisting and wrenching ever tighter against itself.

"You do not ask the questions," Mira heard from above her, her sight lost to blinding tears of pain. "But nevertheless I will tell you, for we are to become close in the next few weeks. Very close indeed."

When the pain stopped Mira was reduced to breathless panting while her tormentor spoke. "I am Prelate Soyidh, of the Rayaj. We are the right hand of the Sacred Saint. It is our doctrine that governs this vast empire. You could say we are its heart and soul. Without us, the Nihil race would still be embroiled in its endless conflicts over one heathen religion or another. We brought order from chaos, peace from unchecked hatreds, wisdom from the fog of ignorance." The mask hovered closer to Mira's face, close enough for her to see the bone-like texture beneath its shiny red pigmentation.

"But more importantly between you and I," the voice cooed, slithery, calm, serenely lethal, "I am the one who demanded your life be spared. You are, therefore, mine." A gloved hand uncoiled and stroked the black and blue bruising on her stomach lightly, gentle but insistent. To Mira's amazement, the bruises melted away at Soyidh's touch.

She could feel - or imagined she felt - the Prelate's breath on her face and tried to turn away from the bloody visage of the Soyidh's mask, staring instead to her side, where she saw a body strung up by its wrists. She recognized the plain, unassuming mask of one of the Nihil outcasts. Myr, she guessed. The mask was broken, bloody. What little she could see of the woman's features were likewise bloodstained and covered in gore.

"The Wall is gone," Soyidh remarked, "otherwise she might have been shown mercy and allowed to join her ancestors. Instead, she was judged for her apostasy and rebellion. Many of the clerics wished to do the same to you, as did some of the other prelates. I, however, while ripping through your mind to learn your language, saw in you a kernel of potential. You might yet be converted to the true faith as taught by the Ministry of Light.

"You are promising, child, but you have been raised by evil."

Mira thought about the Mandalorians. "Tell me something I don't know."

For her sarcastic quip, she was again buried in pain. By some invisible force, her flesh twisted and wrenched against itself. The torment was even worse than before, spreading to her chest, neck, and shoulders. In seconds she was screaming her lungs out, and when there was no breath left in her body she croaked and sobbed helplessly while she attempted to suck in the slightest bit of air.

Soyidh put her mask mere inches from Mira's tear-streaked, agonized face. "One of the first things you will learn is not to speak unless I give you license. But more than that you will be honest with me and not make me regret sparing you, or this will not be the last night you spend in torment."

The pain, if it were possible, was suddenly cranked even higher, ripping fresh screams from Mira's throat.

And then Prelate Soyidh left her there, wracked with implacable agony. Long, stinging lacerations tore her flesh open, spilling rivers of blood over her skin.

The torture chamber was devoid of windows of any sort, leaving her with no way to mark the passage of time. Seconds stretched into minutes, minutes to hours. Time eventually lost all meaning for her, the relentless pain overrode everything and left her with nothing but its unending torment.

Long after she had screamed her lungs out, long after her tears had run dry, when she was too tired even to flinch from the constant agony afflicting her, the pain lifted. Exhausted, Mira's mind fell into feverish dreams.

_Terrified, she dashed down the hall to another hiding place. Fire was spreading across the carpet in the living room downstairs. The two men, not having found anything of value, had grown irritable and frustrated and in their frenzied rampage had knocked over the oil lamps Mama and Papa kept burning during the nighttime, spilling the burning oil over the room._

_She choked down a sob at the thought of her parents, lying motionless while the flames licked at their bodies, sending up the awful stench of burning flesh._

_At least they hadn't found her._

_At first, when they started up the stairs, she'd been certain they would discover her, but she was finally able to make her limbs work and scuttle into her bedroom closet before they made it upstairs. While they tore her room apart, as silently as she could, she crept underneath the floorboards into Mama and Papa's room._

_She was small, and still able to use the tiny crawlspaces between the two floors of their house. Mama and Papa would scold her whenever they found out she'd been crawling under the floorboards, because it was dangerous. But Mama and Papa were dead, and she was in more danger from the two men in the house than from falling through the ceiling._

_Still thoroughly frightened, she crouched, petrified, in her parents' closet, listening to the men turn the house inside out, cursing all the while. Smoke from downstairs, already prevalent in the bedroom, trickled into the closet, threatening to make her cough. She couldn't cough, couldn't make a sound that would alert them to the fact that she existed._

_She didn't want to die. She wanted to live. Her mouth stayed clamped shut._

_All of a sudden, she heard a crash from downstairs and loud yelling in guttural voices. Swords were pulled free from sheaths, war cries exchanged, and blows landed. Two mortal screams sounded in the air that was so thick one could cut it with a knife. She didn't even dare breathe._

_The house fell silent but for the growing fire downstairs._

_She waited for what seemed like an eternity, listening to nothing but the soft sound of the flames creeping up the walls, until she could work up the courage to crack the closet door open. Immediately the smoke rushed in, forcing her into an involuntary cough. She froze with fear, but when nothing happened she forced herself to keep moving._

_Looking out the door to the hallway, she saw bodies. The two men in colored armor lay on the floor in a shiny, red pool that had oozed nearly up to her feet. Orange and yellow reflections danced on its surface from the light cast by thin tendrils of flame that were cavorting upon the walls of the upstairs hallway._

_She stared dumbly at the two men dead at her feet until the smoke started to make it hard for her to breathe and she remembered to stay low to the ground. On her hands and knees, she crawled through the lake of blood._

_The heat grew more intense once she scrambled down the stairs. Fire was everywhere, smoke in her eyes, awful smells invading her nostrils. Mama and Papa were little more than charred skeletons in what remained of the living room. Her heartbroken tears evaporated from her face before they even had a chance to fall to the ground beneath her._

_Reaching up and burning her hand on the searing doorknob, she pushed the front door open and crawled out onto the grassland outside._

_Before she could move any further, she felt strong hands grab her around the waist and sling over broad shoulders. She heard herself screaming for Mama. But she knew Mama couldn't help her anymore. She was all alone._

Mira moaned in delirium when a sharp knife of pain in her neck awoke her, ripping her from the torment of dreamland to the torment of the waking world.

All over her were sickening bruises and ugly scabs that still wept thick blood onto already-dried and cracked bloodstains.

Dimly, her pain-fogged mind wondered if it had all been worth it. If Revan and Kuryama had completed their mission, gotten the Sacred Saint off the planet and to wherever it was they planned to take him. She wondered if the war had been won or lost with her capture, and realized she was beginning not to care.

Gradually, Mira noticed that something had changed. Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, the dull, hammering pain that droned like background noise in her skull receded. With a sensation similar to having hundreds of Dxun silk bugs crawling over her, the bruises and tears in her flesh healed themselves, leaving only the dry husks of hideous scabs and dark layers of blood.

Before Mira had a chance to wonder in amazement at the instantaneous healing, she heard robes swish into the room and shortly saw the blood-red mask of the Prelate appear above her face. She flinched involuntarily, aching bones and stinging muscles burning in protest as she strained against the bonds that held her still, digging deeper into the flesh of her wrists and ankles.

She forced herself to be still as Soyidh cupped her chin in a single gloved hand. "Good morning, child. Today is an important day for you. Today I will decide whether or not it is worth my effort to keep you. Whether it wouldn't be better if I simply turn you over to one of the clerics and have you tortured to death." Mira closed her eyes as the Prelate dipped her mask less than two inches from her shivering face, but opened them wide when she felt an insistent stab of pain in her neck.

Soyidh's voice grew softer, taking on a tone of threat woven with a paradoxical hint of seductiveness. "And they do have many entertaining methods of torture. They would ply you with as much suffering as a male can inflict upon a female and take pleasure from every second of it. You would take weeks to die, unlike she," she casually indicated the still-hanging corpse of Myr, "who was on the brink of death already when she was brought in for punishment. You are still full of life. Life that could be either turned to the glory of the Ministry of Light and the Sacred Empire, or ripped from you, piece by agonizing piece, in judgment.

"I will give you this first chance; learn the ways of the Ministry of Light, reject the Force and all it entails, become part of something greater than yourself and I will spare you the greater suffering to come. You may speak."

Given a moment to think, Mira's mind spiraled with a thousand different thoughts. What did she really know of this war she'd let herself be dragged into? Why did she trust the high and mighty Jedi like Revan so implicitly and so instantly? What did the Force truly hold for her?

She didn't have all the answers, but she knew the Nihil were her enemies. It didn't matter to her what little she'd actually seen of them; she knew enough to know that they enslaved, tortured, and murdered for the sake of extremist beliefs. And as much as she hated the Mandalorians and their never-ending quest for honor at any cost, they were nothing compared to those who killed because they believed it was their right.

Through gritted teeth and a glare, Mira spat an epithet.

Soyidh withdrew herself. Her voice became as cold and hard as the icefalls of Hoth. "So you reject the first offer."

As she stepped away, instantly two other figures appeared beside her. Broad-shouldered, taller, with masks of a bone white; more Rayaj. And they were men.

Mira felt rather than heard her leather pants rip from waist to ankles and suddenly she was naked. Beads of cold sweat collected on her brow as her heart started racing.

Echoing from above, now out of sight, she heard Soyidh speak. "These two will teach you a small part of what awaits you should you choose forfeiture at the end of this day. They will teach you well, so that you might have the enlightenment to accept my next offer."

Mira soon learned that the previous night had been a mere prelude to a much greater symphony of torture. For hours they tormented her. Cruel, remorseless, heartless, if there was worse pain that could be inflicted on a human being, Mira did not know of it. When they were finished, she was covered in fresh layers of blood that bubbled forth from brutal gashes in her flesh, smeared in long streaks across her chest and down her legs.

When the two clerics left, Soyidh whispered in her ear, "Why should you suffer so for the Force? What makes this Revan or this Kuryama so worthy of your loyalty that you should die this way for them? Think on these questions, child. You have but one chance left."

All but paralyzed with pain, too exhausted to cry, Mira had never felt so desolate and helpless in all her life.

* * *

The Prelate left her alone for another few hours, left her shivering in pools of her own blood while the pain refused to relent. Her mind dazed with agony, Mira passed in and out of consciousness, her waking thoughts merging with dizzying dreams and fevered memories, fused into a single stream of altered consciousness.

_"MAMAAAAAA!" she screamed in panic as she desperately tried to wriggle free from the man, kicking her legs and swinging her arms furiously._

_Facing back towards the house, she could see it engulfed in the tall flames. Like red and orange fingers reaching up to the heavens, they cast such intense heat she could still feel it on her face, and the black smoke pouring from the blazing house was still forcing coughs from her throat._

_The man who'd scooped her from the ground was running swiftly, each stride he took knocking her painfully over his shoulder and driving the breath from her lungs, making it impossible for her to keep screaming. She gasped when she felt herself being flung to the ground, but instead of hitting the grass, she plunged into a stream of running water._

_She thrashed and spluttered, trying to keep her head above the surface, until she realized that the man wasn't trying to harm her, just put out the fire that had somehow caught the hem of her nightdress. In the smoldering light of the burning house behind them, she finally saw the man clearly--and nearly choked with fright._

_He looked just like the men who'd beaten Mama and Papa and set their house on fire. He wore the same armor - though it was blue and not red or yellow - and looked nearly as big. There was no helmet on his head, which gave her a good look at his face. He looked to be barely past adolescence, his squarish face still had lingering remnants of childish youth hidden beneath the heavy brow and sharp jaws. Though young, his face was already scarred; a thin white line, seeming to glow in the orange light, stretched from his temple to his cheek._

_"Stay quiet," he whispered tersely, "there may be other clans about and I don't want you giving away my position." He put a fierce eye close to hers. "If I get made, you die."_

_Shivering from the cold water of the stream, still terrified, she clamped her mouth shut._

_They stayed there for what seemed like hours, remaining motionless while the house collapsed under the fire until it was little more than a pile of smoldering embers. When the man seemed satisfied, he spoke to her again, putting his face uncomfortably close to hers._

_"I did not rescue you. You are a witness I can't afford to let run free. If any of the other clans discover I was here, there will be trouble. I killed those Mandalores because they were criminals, but I cannot let you free for the others of their clan to find."_

_"Please, I just want to go home," she pleaded, sobbing._

_Angrily, he hauled her up, forcing her to look at the burning mass of wood and stone that had been her house. "You have no home! Your family is dead, and there is nowhere for you to go except to be captured by another clan! As dishonorable as killing you would be, I'll do it if you make it necessary. If you want to live, you will have to come with me. Clan Ordo will occasionally accept outsiders as Mandalores, and you have strength of spirit in you. I respect that, but don't make me regret sparing you._

_"You can live as a Mandalore, or die here."_

Mira's eyes snapped open, desperate thoughts flooding her brain. She was all alone, abandoned once again, and had no other choice. There was nothing left for her.

From a hoarse throat, she cried in a forlorn wail, "Prelate! Prelate Soyidh, I'll do whatever you want! Please, I don't want to die! I want to live! _I want to live!_"


	13. The Damage

Mira couldn't remember the last time she'd been so grateful to be allowed to curl up naked on a cold stone floor and sleep dreamless sleep. She was no longer bleeding - Prelate Soyidh had healed most of her injuries except for a gruesome hand print burned into her breast, the mark of the Ministry of Light - but the pain still lingered over her body like a ghost. But was past caring, and glad just to have rest and a reprieve from being stretched out and bound on the torture rack. Several times, when disturbing dreams intruded on her peaceful sleep, she would awake, whimpering fitfully until she could control herself and sleep's comforting embrace reclaim her.

For all Mira knew it could have been a single night's time or three by the time Prelate Soyidh returned, carrying tan robes over her arm. She was wearing a white mask instead of the red this time and she moved with comfortable authority rather than threat.

"Stand," Soyidh commanded.

Stretching stiff limbs, sore muscles, and aching bones, Mira did so. The hand print on her chest throbbed with pain, but she forced herself to ignore it while the Prelate draped the tan robes over her shivering body, wrapping her in the folds of the shapeless garment. When she was finished, the Prelate produced a plain gray mask from her own robe and fastened it over Mira's face, bunching her thick red hair behind the robe's hood and pulling it over her head.

"Do you know why all Nihil wear the mask?" the Prelate asked as Mira fingered its bony surface with a hand.

Mira shook her head.

"Then this will be your first lesson."

With skilled grace, Soyidh reached a hand into her own hood and undid a clasp. When she lowered the mask from her face, Mira's eyes beheld for a moment a blur, like a mirage, before a face coalesced. She stifled a gasp at what she saw; it was her mother's face. She knew it had to be an illusion, but the memories stirred by looking upon her mother's soft features again after so long were heartbreakingly painful.

Soyidh's face - her mother's face - was split by a sad smile. She took Mira and led her by the arm while she talked. "There are many reasons we wear the mask. The first is simple enough to understand. During the Old Revolutions - the troubled, disturbed times of our genesis - the first tyrants who came to power rightly concluded that our race was a hideous disfigurement of life and began enforcing upon all who fell under their rule that they should wear masks to cover their appearances. Though they were eventually to form the basis of the Ministry of Light, these tyrants held only a tenuous grip on power, and there were a series of bloody wars during which those who opposed them were eventually all but wiped out. With no one left to challenge them, these early tyrants laid the foundation for the empire of today. That is the first reason; it is a statute set down by our founding fathers that persists to this day, if for different reasons."

For the first time, Mira began to take notice of her surroundings. Soyidh had led her out of the torture chamber and into a vast indoor garden. Windows set high in the towering ceiling above and round about the expansive walls let in rich beams of golden sunlight which reflected off the polished marble floor and smooth pillars all around. Majestic fountains and sparkling streams wound through beds of opulent green ferns and the vivid colors of exotic flowers in full bloom.

People were everywhere; sitting on benches beside the the streams, walking amidst the towering columns, standing and conversing in groups, or simply passing through. But the atmosphere was nonetheless one of quiet reverence. The sheer quietness in the midst of such a gathering of people was disorienting, almost dreamlike.

Soyidh took notice of Mira's stares at her surroundings. "This is one of the Gardens of Monument. It is meant to remind the people of the beauty of the Empire, envisioned and realized only through the obedience and cooperation of all who serve under it. Just as in a magnificent garden where every flower has a place and a role to fill, in the Sacred Empire all have security through contribution. When one attempts to gain something for herself or himself, it is only to the detriment of everyone else within the Empire. This is why all are treated equal and given equal, so there is harmony. And like the water and the light feeds the garden, so the Ministry of Light feeds the Empire. We provide the authority and security that governs its billions of inhabitants. If the people do not obey, if they do not contribute and surrender their selfish desires to the good of all, then the light is removed from them and they become Pariah, cut off from the bond with the Ministry of Light."

Mira was only half-listening, and startled by a lance of pain that shot into her skull as an indicator of Soyidh's displeasure. She fought down a sob as tears of pain welled up in her eyes.

"Pay attention to me and I will tell you the next reason why all Nihil wear the mask." The coldness was back in the Prelate's voice.

The pain passed and Mira took a deep breath and focused raptly on Soyidh, having no intention of letting her attention wander again.

"The second reason for the mask begins at the time the Ministry of Light was formed. The first tyrants to seize power had long died and left their kingdoms to heirs. It was these who discovered the power of the Rayaj. They discovered it to be the polar opposite of the vile Force--not a tool of oppression but one of protection. They used this power to drive away the barbarian tribes who continually threatened the conquered kingdoms and protected those who had come to be their people. It was symbiotic; through their conquest they came to power, and with that power they protected those they had conquered. But there were yet more revolutions as opposition rose and fell, eventually dividing the people in two as some of the rebels grew powerful enough to challenge the tyrants.

"Civil wars raged for decades until the tyrants finally were forced to forge a permanent alliance to protect their power, their territory, and their people. They founded the Ministry of Light and its most potent and powerful branch, the Rayaj, to combat the pervasive propaganda of their adversaries. The new Rayaj, lords of immense magic who commanded to power of death itself, were the ones who created the bond that finally, after centuries of turmoil, cemented our people together.

"All who would swear their allegiance and surrender their lives and wills to them were bonded to the one chosen, the Sacred Saint of the Nihil, and spared from the slaughter that followed. The bond to the Sacred Saint shrouded our people in a cloak of power that accomplished what the masks had tried to do; hide our appearance forever. As long as we are bonded to the Saint, we have no appearance but the one we choose, as I choose to show you the face of your mother.

"We wear the masks in tribute to the ones who formed the Ministry of Light and bound together our Empire. They are also symbolic of our mask names. We all are given two names; a mask name and a flesh name. The mask name is the proper address for socialization. Flesh names are only exchanged from parent to child at birth, and lover to lover ever after. My mask name is Soyidh, as I have told you. Yours will be Jalisca. Do you understand?"

Mira nodded. "Jalisca. Yes, I understand."

"Good." Soyidh put the mask back over her face, and for an instant Mira thought she saw her features swirl and shimmer like a mirage before the white mask clicked into place.

Silkily, Soyidh put a finger underneath Mira's chin. "Mira is your flesh name. And since you and I are closer than lovers now as master and student, I will tell you mine."

Mira shuddered as the Prelate whispered a single word into her ear, shuddered as the rolling syllables passed a wave of profane revulsion over her. Hearing the name left her feeling more defiled than had the hours of horrific torture.

"So, Jalisca, I have told you of the history and customs of our people. Now you must answer me what I ask."

Betraying her friends was something Mira wished desperately not to do, but she couldn't go through more of Soyidh's torture. She didn't want to die that way, she wanted to live. Besides, she told herself, it wasn't as if Revan had made her privy to much of his plans anyway. He told her only what he deemed she needed to know, leaving her mostly in the dark in regards to much of his strategy. She had almost nothing to betray, only their mission, which had already been carried out.

"What purpose will it serve Revan to hold Saint Akar prisoner? If you know you will tell me."

Mira could have sighed with relief that it was a question she could answer. As she spoke, she tried to brace herself for Soyidh's sure anger. "He wants to exploit this bond to cause the Force to flow through your race again."

Mira was surprised to hear the Prelate laugh instead.

"Then he is more foolish than I thought," Soyidh remarked. "Such a thing is not possible. And regardless, the Ministry of Light has already begun the process of selecting another to serve as Sacred Saint. Soon the bond will flow through the new and Akar will be useless to him--only a great deal of trouble.

"You see, Jalisca, there is no individual within the Empire who, in themselves, is important. Not even the Sacred Saint. Anyone, no matter his or her position, can be easily replaced. It is the post that is significant. Individual lives are meaningless, only what is for the good of all is important."

Listening with numb ears to Soyidh's words, Mira was crushed with despair. It had all been for nothing. Everything, from the moment Kuryama had stepped onto the _Ebon Hawk_ and collapsed into a coma, to the bloody fighting alongside a desperate alliance of Jedi and Sith on three different worlds, from watching friends and allies fall, to becoming one of the fallen, was all for naught. There was no way for them to win. The Nihil were going to have them all.

* * *

Up close, the Gardens were even more stunning than Mira had at first noticed. Walking next to one of the gentle streams and looking over row upon row of rich red, vibrant yellow, deep purple, and creamy white blossoms from dozens of species of flower she'd never seen in her life, she felt cheered just the tiniest bit by the display of nature. Having lived all her adult life in the dregs of Nar Shaddaa - surrounded by the stink and filth of the smuggler's moon day in day out, chasing down one lowlife after another for the credits - such forthright beauty was completely alien to her. Even had the flowerbeds been filled with ordinary flowers that grew beside every swoop track on Dantooine, she still would have been struck by their simple, elegant beauty. Arranged as they were in breathtaking swirls and mosaics of living color and vibrancy, their magnificence was almost overpowering.

Even more incredible to her than the glorious display of life in the Gardens was the mere thought that such an oppressive society as the Nihil Empire could have created something so beautiful.

Prelate Soyidh had left her in the Gardens to reflect on what she'd been taught, how life meant nothing without obedience and contribution to something greater. After her brief history and social coaching lesson, the Prelate had spent the better part of an hour lecturing her on the philosophy and beliefs of the Nihil, concepts and ideas she would have to embrace and follow as a part of the Empire.

Other Nihil dressed in robes like hers were likewise wandering about the Gardens, silent, perhaps lost in thought as was she. Out on the perimeter of the immense chamber, by the towering pillars and radiant windows, white-armored soldiers patrolled by the dozen. On occasion, she even caught sight of other black-robed figures walking among the passersby, and did her best not to attract their attention. There were certainly enough things to look at and be hypnotized by in the Gardens, and Mira had no trouble fitting in with the others to stay out of the attentions of any passing Rayaj.

She was trying not to fall to her knees and sob with futility at the hopelessness of her bleak future when she noticed two Nihil soldiers break from their patrol and head toward her. The urge to run was nearly uncontrollable, but she knew there was nowhere she could go to escape, not as long as she was on this planet, in this vast section of space, and maybe even the whole galaxy.

Not knowing what else to do, Mira fell onto a white marble bench beside a stunning fountain and tried not to cry.

The two soldiers, as they approached, became cautious and paranoid, casting suspicious glances every which way and nervously fingering their weapons. They stopped a short distance from her, slinking about as if they were trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. Mira was now more confused than frightened, and observational skills born of years working bounties began to reactivate, trying to ascertain what the two could possibly want and why they were acting so strangely.

When another Nihil patrol passed out of sight, and for the moment there was no one around except her and the two odd Nihil soldiers, they came right up to her. One of them tugged at her hood, brushing it aside to get a look at her red hair.

He spoke to her. His voice was familiar.

"Mira! Thank the juma, I knew you weren't dead!"

Mira shot to her feet. She couldn't believe he was here. It didn't seem possible.

"Atton! What in the name of every deity in the galaxy are you doing here!" She kept her voice low out of caution, but the temptation to scream almost overrode reason. She was also gripped with a sudden desire to fling her arms around him in a hug, and had an even harder time suppressing that.

"Nice to see you too." He shrugged and pointed at his companion. "Rigel and I decided to come after you."

Shaking her head in stunned disbelief, Mira sat back down as she listened to Atton.

"After we got all the Jedi who were left out of the palace, Revan had us hightail it out of the system and we lost a few more ships in the battle. After he finished doing his magic on his wounded Cathar bodyguard I asked him what happened. He stonewalled me, refused to tell me a thing, so I went to Kuryama and got the story from her. She and everyone else was sure you were dead. And then Revan decided we had to abandon the asteroid base anyway--something about giving Kuryama time and space to do whatever it is she needed to. Heck, I don't know. By that time, Rigel and I were fully sick of being pushed around. I, for one, was tired of sitting on the sidelines. I think thirty years of that was enough."

At this break in the story, Atton let Rigel pick it up. "We boosted the _Whitecap_ from the Sith hangar and took off without permission. Atton and I both had a gut feeling youd probably figured out a way to survive, since no one actually saw you killed. I've seen you in action, you're pretty resourceful.

"It helped that apparently Revan has tracking devices implanted in all of us somewhere. Don't ask me how he got them in, but they're there. He could've stopped us, in fact he hailed us and let us know he knew where we were going. Even gave us your signature so we could find you." The one Mira presumed was Rigel shook his head incredulously. "I don't understand that guy."

"So anyway," Atton continued, "we went in cloaked, landed in a debris field in the middle of the city, and tracked your position with one of Rigel's gizmos."

Mira was overwhelmed. "That's insane. Even if I think you look a little short for Nihil, you definitely look just like them. How did you do that?"

"What, you mean the eyes?" Atton pointed to his face.

Mira nodded.

Atton did a little thing with his head that Mira could tell from her time around him meant he was scowling. "Rigel rigged something with black market gear. Sort of a personal cloaking field some gangsters were working on, tinkering around with traditional stealth generators. It makes you numb in all the wrong places, if you know what I mean, but it passed us off."

Mira was tempted to be overjoyed, but she knew the two rogues had come all this way for nothing. She couldn't escape. Soyidh would find her--she had no illusions about being able to escape her.

"Just how did you plan on getting me out of here?" she asked, trying not to sound too cynical. Not quite succeeding.

Atton and Rigel glanced at each other. "Uh, yeah, we hadn't thought that far ahead," Atton sheepishly replied.

"Get of of here," Mira told them. "You can't save me. Besides, I won't make it two steps out of this garden without my master. I'm sorry, but you came all this way for nothing. Save yourselves, I might as well be dead."

"No way, Mira. We've been through too much for me to give up on you now." It was the most caring thing she'd ever heard Atton say, and she knew he meant it.

But she had to make him see, make them both see, that there was no way out for her. Angrily, she got to her feet again and ripped open her robes at her chest, exposing the sickly burn mark on her right breast that had yet to completely clot over. The odor of burnt flesh rose to her nostrils.

"Look at it!" she demanded when the two men tried to shrink away from the hideous sight of the oozing hand print. "I've been marked by their Ministry of Light. I'm to become one of them. There is no way I can leave. The only reason you managed to catch me away from my slave master is because I'm supposed to be reflecting on my lessons for the day. She'll know if I try to escape with you and then we'll all die slow, agonizing deaths! I've had a taste of that fate and it's something I don't ever want to go through again!" She closed her robes over her injury. "I'm really glad to see you two again, and it means a lot that you would do this for me. But you can't save me. The only thing you can do now is save yourselves."

When she had finished, and before either man could respond, the Gardens were suddenly filled with the sound of screams.

One of them - Mira couldn't tell if it was Atton or Rigel beneath the armor and masks - shoved her down behind the bench as they leveled their weapons and scanned the immediate area. The screaming was everywhere, reverberating off the marble floor, the immense glass windows, and the cavernous roof, turning the quiet surreality of the peaceful sanctuary into into a deafening cacophony of mortal terror.

Flashes of harsh blue light razored through the room, bouncing blindingly bright off the milky surfaces of the building as the screams grew ever more inhuman and bestial. Abruptly, a shock wave swept through the giant chamber, sounding with an audible impact to the air as the concussive energy echoed off the solid walls. Waves shot through the meandering brooks, water from the fountains showered down on the floor, petals were stripped from flowerbeds, and the great windows shattered with a deafening crash. Mira covered her head as a torrent of glass rained down on them.

After the last of the glass hit the floor, everything was quiet. Slowly at first, then gradually picking up force, the din of battle replaced the screams. There were first yells of outrage none of them could understand, then blows, soon even weapons fire erupted.

"This is bad," Mira said. All three of them had spent enough time on Nar Shaddaa for one reason or another to recognize the signs of a newborn riot.

"Maybe not," Rigel disagreed. "You asked how we planned on getting you out. Maybe this is our chance."

Mira had to admit he might have a point, something definitely felt different. Cautiously, she felt under her robes where she knew the burn mark was. It was gone, the skin unbroken. Her eyes opened wide. "I think she's dead."

"Dead, who?" Atton asked from over the barrel of his weapon.

She didn't know how she could possibly know, but it couldn't be anything else. "The gay slave master I was telling you about. I think she's dead."

Rigel sighed audibly. "Great! Let's get of out here then!"

"Good idea," Atton agreed. He looked down at Mira, who was still crouching by the stone bench. "Can you handle a gun, or do you just want to flash everyone and let the boobs do the work?"

Mira shot her best scowl at him, despite the fact that most of its scathing intensity was lost behind the mask. "Atton, just because I'm glad to see you after two days of torture doesn't mean I've suddenly become a damsel in distress or a two-cred prostitute, for that matter. You can give me your gun and get behind me, I'm a better shot than you anyway."

Atton grunted and handed her a pistol from his belt. "Here, smartass, I'm keeping mine."

"We need to go!" Rigel urged them impatiently.

They started moving not a moment too soon, as almost immediately they crossed paths with a Nihil soldier who staggered towards them, firing crazily from his weapon while yelling incoherently. A few clinical shots from Atton's rifle put him down.

When they exited the winding paths of the Gardens, discarding their unneeded masks, the three of them were faced with an open brawl between Nihil soldiers and civilians alike, all seemingly at war with everyone else. It was utter chaos among the columns. Nearby, Mira saw on the floor remains of several Rayaj sending up tendrils of foul-smelling blue smoke, unmistakably dead.

She helped Atton and Rigel gun down a few rioters who came charging at them, but her mind was nearly stunned by the possibility. Spontaneous riots and mass deaths of Rayaj disciples--maybe, just maybe, Kuryama had succeeded. Maybe the war was over.

Unfortunately, while Mira was having this epiphany, the mob realized they were there, and seemed almost to coalesce in opposition and charge en masse. The illusion of unity among the rioters was just that, an illusion, as they continued to battle amongst themselves, but to Mira, Atton, and Rigel, it was still a serious threat.

Ducking behind one of the giant columns, they fired back at the unleashed mob in concerted, concentrated attacks. Sustaining heavy casualties, the crowd broke just as they reached them, degenerating into a vicious free-for-all. Their ranged weapons were nearly useless in close quarters, so Atton and Rigel pulled swords from scabbards on their backs and Mira fell back on her considerable hand-to-hand skills.

They chopped down the mostly untrained opposition easily, not even the soldiers much of a challenge in their fevered, almost drunken state. Moving quickly, the three of them fought their way through the garden chamber and to an enormous, stunningly ornate staircase where other small battles were being fought. They skirted around the conflicts were they could, preferring escape to battle. The stairs seemed to go on forever, drilling down in its wide spiral for hundreds of feet.

They passed landings onto other floors that opened onto yet more of the pervasive riots, reinforcing Mira's belief that Kuryama had completed the mission and the Force flowed through the Nihil once again. She would have been tempted to cheer had she not been running for her life.

Finally, the three of them reached the bottom and an equally grand entrance to the city floor. What looked like a full-scale battle was raging in the streets outside. Not just a riot, it was a clear struggle between two opposing sides. Before they could even gape at what lay before them or think of how to get past it, they were seized by robed men outside on the sprawling entryway.

It was a fairly-sized crowd who held them at gunpoint. Oddly, they didn't look like Nihil; they had no masks and wore strikingly human faces, covered though much of their countenances were by low hoods shielding their eyes. Still, however, when they spoke it was in the hissing speech Mira had gotten used to hearing.

When none of them could respond, one of the men grabbed her by the chin and and spoke forcefully in crude, broken, but understandable Basic. "You are for us or against us?"

"I don't know," Mira managed, trying to speak through the grip he had on her mouth. "Who are you?"

The question seemed to genuinely puzzle the man, as he released her and stepped back, his face unreadable concealed as it was by the hood that fell over his forehead and eyes. "We," he indicated those around him, "we are miraluka."

Mira's jaw dropped, as did Atton's and Rigel's.

"Freedom or servitude?" she asked, hoping he would understand.

He took a mask from his robes, dropped it on the ground, and crushed his boot over it. The symbol of enslavement cracked and broke under his foot.

He looked up at her and spoke a single word. "Freedom."

They all lowered their weapons. "We are with you."

* * *

_Civilization, that most noble of goals; a free society of equal opportunity, united, bound by justice, where no man need fear another. This is what the Jedi wished to forge those thousands of years past with the formation of the Galactic Republic. Whether or not they succeeded at the first is unclear, but what is clear is that the vision has long since been lost._

_This civilization, this republic, is broken. It was not by war, war was merely the final blow. What broke it was the strain of its own weight, carried by shoulders unable to bear the burden. Foolish generations traded loyalty and honesty for money, seeding corruption and stagnation within the edifice of government. Further successive generations traded strength for placation, pacifism, weakness, opening the door for the Great Wars._

_ A different society, a true civilization, would have emerged from the Great Sith War as a stronger entity, being blooded in such a fierce war and coming out of it as the victors would have been a mark of pride and incitement to remain firm. Instead, the already-crumbling Republic threw itself forward with barely enough force on which to sustain itself, to say nothing of striking back against the aggressors. Wounded and limping it stumbled into the Triad Wars, a final triptych of desperate struggles._

_There was no might left in the Republic to overcome the Mandalorian Crusade, and finally some came to see that fact. In a desperate attempt to prolong the the life of the dying beast, they turned once again to the Jedi Council, the last line of defense of justice in their crippled society. They didn't realize that their guardians had gone the same way. Their Masters saw only a terrible vision of prophecy for the future should they enter the conflict, and in the process of attempting to elude the vision's fulfillment they ultimately ensured its eventual outcome._

_Revan's departure split the Jedi Order, creating anew the Sith, a force powerful enough to defeat the Mandalorians. He then led the Sith against the Republic in his own war, which his once-friend Aleksie soon supplanted and carried to a crescendo of bloodshed. It drove the remains of the Republic to the brink._

_There is no future beyond this Third War for the Republic as a society, this effigy of civilization must end in one way or another. It is offered two choices: Conquest and subjugation under the iron fist of the Nihil, Force-dead creatures who seek the end of all life but their own because their religion brands us all heathens, blasphemers. Or it may die with what dignity remains in its undead carcass, starting with the destruction of the Senate to let those with the strength to persist rise from the ashes and take a new stand for civilization._

_Chaos is the base form of all things, it is that from which creation begins. The destruction of Malachor V at the end of the Mandalorian Crusade was an invocation to chaos, made to bring about the creation of a new Sith State. I invoke chaos once again, to wipe away these fragments of society and clear our way for a new beginning._

_To be continued..._


	14. Final Resistance

The smuggler's base had long been evacuated, the old Sith ships carrying the last of the Jedi and Sith were gone from its hangars, having left for the Republic and a final objective Revan would not reveal. Only one ship remained in the cleverly disguised stronghold. The _Ebon Hawk_, attended to by a Jedi pilot, sat alone in an empty hangar, waiting on the last two Jedi to enter and be on their way. Kuryama and Visas, however, had an important objective of their own to complete before they could leave.

Kept unconscious by a sedative gas filling his force cage, Akar Xiylehn, Sacred Saint of the Nihil Empire, was locked inside a tibanna diamond extraction chamber, its titanium-reinforced duracrete walls strong enough to withstand a hit from a starship cannon.

Visas and Kuryama could only guess at his powers, and despite all the security precautions they and Revan had taken, Kuryama was still unconvinced he was no longer a threat. A fear that was proving well-founded, as despite the tranquilizing gases, the Nihil leader was beginning to claw his way toward consciousness.

From behind a six-inch-thick plexicrete observation window they watched in silence, their probings with the Force finding barely anything of more substance or significance than the things they already knew. Akar was shrouded in dark power--a power that held billions in thrall and cut off utterly from the Force. He was the source, the center of the storm, feeding off the energy funneled to him by those willing slaves through their blind devotion to his power.

Kuryama sighed and opened her eyes, her worry growing. "Revan has placed too much trust in me."

"Do not say such things, Master," Visas admonished, "I have faith in you."

"I'm worried faith may not be enough, Visas. I am still not convinced it is possible to reawaken the Force in such a creature. Revan says I am proof it's possible, but I fail to see the similarities as he does. Nor do I have any inkling of how it came to be. He has given me an impossible task."

"Some things in life are impossible, Master," Visas reflected. "But most we simply do not understand how to overcome. Such things are only impossible when we believe them to be. I learned this upon the death of my old master. Before I came to you, I would have thought it impossible for him to die, for myself to be anything more than his slave. But in truth I had made myself his slave, and created his invincibility through my own unbelief." Visas frowned at her sternly, in the way her mother would sometimes do when she learned of something Kuryama had done that she disapproved of. "I believe you know this, Master. You cannot keep believing something simply because you fear it to be so. You have told me of your exile, and how you at first were firmly convinced of the truth of all the lies you had been given to keep you quiet. They broke you, kept you ever-more isolated in self-inflicted misery, until you freed yourself from the chains of your fearful beliefs."

Visas' admonition brought a smile to Kuryama's face. She had indeed learned. Believing something out of fear or want was ignorant at best, self-destructive at worst. "Thank you for that, Visas."

Their interchange was suddenly interrupted by a loud crack from inside the diamond chamber. The force cage had been destroyed, a system of shallow fractures were spread over the whole floor of the chamber like a spiderweb. The Sacred Saint was conscious and aware, standing erect and staring back at them through the plexicrete, inscrutable behind his mask.

He spoke, his words passing right through the thick walls and into their minds. "_You can accomplish nothing by holding me. The Nihil Empire will crush the heathen religion of the Force despite your feeble efforts to stop our righteous cause, which transcends my existence. Now, even as we speak, a new leader is being chosen to lead us in our holy crusade against you heathens and blasphemers._" The hatred in his words, unlike his visage, was unmasked--he held nothing but abhorrence for those outside of his extremism and was not loath to make it known to them.

"_Some may find mercy by bowing to the Ministry of Light and its true teachings. You,_" he directed his words at Kuryama, "_might even have been spared. You have lived without the Force, free __from its oppressive grip. You could have been accepted as a citizen of our Empire. But like a true apostate you rejected your destiny._"

Hearing Akar Xiylehn speak had the same effect as listening to the words of Rayaj clerics. It was terrifying. That Kuryama now knew how to counter the paralyzing fear did not take away from its intrinsic dread, she found herself holding her breath until his attention turned away from her and toward Visas.

"_Nihilus frustrated the Ministry with his silence, but I see now what made him break from us._"

Visas inhaled sharply at his sudden words, laden with such meaning.

"_You are Miraluka, descendant of the Purged Ones, those who refused our Empire. The ancestors of your race were our rebellious cousins who went whoring after the Force and received spirit sight in return for their prostitution. Nihilus was to destroy the division of our holy authority you represented in preparation for the beginning of the New Crusade. I can see now that he failed._"

As the words echoed across both their minds, Visas raised her own voice. "_He did not fail. He destroyed my people. There is no one left of Katarr, save me._"

A thunderous noise crashed through Kuryama's head--a laugh, she realized. Akar laughed at Visas. "_Then you are the one who tainted him with the Force, cast him out from his own people. It is you who created the abomination. Know that my power grows, heathen, and soon this pitiful cell will not hold me. Your soul will be mine._"

Visas said not another word, simply turned on her heels and left, her movements making obvious her distress.

Kuryama glared at the imprisoned Akar. "_I hate you,_" she swore, feeling Visas' hurt reverberating in her wake.

* * *

Kuryama found Visas in a bedroom, sitting on the edge of a cot and shaking as if in the grip of one of her nightmares. When she spoke, her tone was even, but it only seemed to make her words worse. "Revan was right, Master."

"He was right?"

"Revan said I am the key and he is correct. Since encountering these Nihil, I have suspected that my old master, Darth Nihilus, was one of them. I am now certain he was a Rayaj cleric, sent, as Akar said, to exterminate my people. I believe his being caught in the storm of Malachor V changed him, damaged his mind so that he differed from the rest of his order. Perhaps he wished to know the veracity of the Nihil's belief that the Force is evil. For whatever his beliefs, he spared me so that I might give him the Force, and give it I did.

"We Miraluka see through the Force because our spirits are shrouded in it, in a place just beyond the physical world. I sense truth in what Akar says, that my people were once of the Nihil. The Force is about us but not of us, much the same way the scoundrels Atton and Mira can use the Force without feeling it.

"Because of my nature, and Darth Nihilus' predisposition, I opened him to the Force. And once he touched it, he ever wanted it, craved feeling its power even as he carried out his own crusade. He wished to wipe out every last being in the galaxy who felt the Force, because even as he lusted after its embrace, he lusted to feel its death, as do all Nihil. All because I made it possible.

"Revan was right; I am the key."

Kuryama sat down beside Visas and laid the Miraluka's head on her shoulder as soft sobs started to break her voice.

"My master forced me to lie with him, so that he could feed on the Force as it flowed through me. He gave no regard to the torture he inflicted on me as he took what he wanted. It began in the very beginning, from the first day of the death of Katarr until he sent me to kill you. Even when my body became numb to the pain, you could not imagine the horrors it still etched into my mind day after day."

Comforting the distraught Miraluka against her shoulder, Kuryama started telling a story of her own.

"Do you know why I don't allow myself to love anyone intimately? It isn't because of the Jedi Code, and certainly not the Dark Side. I've never been a model Jedi. Ten years ago I was closer to one than I am now, but I was never as strict in following Jedi law as some of the more zealous Jedi. The base reason was that my parents refused to abandon me completely to the Order, as most parents do. My mother knew some about the Force, so it wasn't hard for her to fit in at the Temple on Coruscant, where they would visit me as often as they could. So even as I grew up in the Order, I had the blessing of their guidance and care. I didn't entirely realize how beneficial their presence was until my father died when I was eleven.

"I am still thankful for what they did for me, as I believe their influence allowed me to see the necessity of Revan's treason against the Council in going to fight the Mandalorians. When I joined his battle, I felt liberated. Unfortunately, when I joined him and effectively left the Order, I made my first mistake--not by having feelings, but by letting them take a hold over me. The first few battles were as traumatizing as they could possibly have been, as I saw dear friends and comrades killed in the most brutal fashions. The horror of it all drove me in many different directions, until finally, convincing myself it was to cope with it all, I found myself having indiscriminate affairs; with other shaken Jedi, with fellow soldiers, even with Revan himself as I rose in stature.

"It was like I'd completely taken leave of my self-control and forgotten everything the Jedi and my parents ever taught me about emotions. Until one day I had to admit my waywardness to myself and put a stop to it. I'd become pregnant, and was ashamed to not even know who the father was. That was what it took for me to come to my senses, and I realized finally that reason wasn't my sole sovereign--this unconscious tendency of mine to form strong bonds with those around was beginning to run my life. I was misusing it and losing my sanity for it.

"When Kurt was born in my mother's house on Devrita, I made a promise to myself never to so fully depart from my discipline. If I were to lie with another man, it would only be once I was ready to put aside everything else and be married.

"Revan was immeasurably helpful, keeping everything under wraps until I could return to the fleet, where I knew I was still needed. But he and I immediately broke off our relationship, as I did with my other, less prudent affairs. Save for Revan and Jilon, I could tell no one else, because the others weren't even aware of my simultaneous commitments, and to tell them all I had a son whose father I couldn't name would have destroyed them and made me into the same emotional vampire I was determined not to be.

"Even so, keeping such a secret hurt me inside more than the news of my father's death, but the lesson was learned; our feeling serve us, but we should never serve them. I was finished serving my emotions. That's why until the galaxy no longer needs me, I can't love anyone. There are some who I love and value as friends, but I can't go farther than that."

There was a long silence before Kuryama continued.

"I think all these years I've been blinded by enough fear of the truth to believe I didn't know who had to be Kurt's father. That was just an excuse I gave myself so I wouldn't have to accept the man I feared most as his father. The man I watched grow ever more self-possessed in the name of justice. I know who it was and I can't hide from it anymore."

Her face and voice remained calm as Kuryama spoke his name.

* * *

The diamond chamber's massive door slid open with an ear-splitting screech, its massive weight scraping against the metal floor and giant rusty hinges squealing in protest. The pressurized air inside rushed out past Visas, whipping back the folds of her loose black robe as she entered, willing the door shut behind her. The automatic seal on the door engaged, a noise that made the inside of the extraction chamber ring like a bell--or a death knell.

Tears would have slid down Visas' face had she had eyes. But they wouldn't have been tears of regret or fear. Rather, they would have been of the relief she felt inside. Above the turmoil that raged within her, one thought stormed over all the rest: Her Master understood. Ever since touching Kuryama's echo in the Force, Visas knew that understanding was all she had ever wanted; understanding to liberate her from her daily terror, understanding of the pain she endured.

If anything, Kuryama knew pain - Force knew the last decade of her life had been full of pain - but she understood the sweet promise of life. She looked to the future instead of living in the past.

Visas would do anything to preserve the hope of such life as Kuryama represented. There was no sacrifice too great.

With practiced ease she let slip the thin black robes, let them cascade from her body like rainwater sliding off a jungle canopy. Naked, she knelt and addressed the waiting Saint, who watched her with implacable eyes.

"_I offer myself to you, and submit to whatever judgment you may proclaim upon me and my heathen ways. I accept the authority of the Ministry of Light, and pledge my allegiance, my very life and will, to the Sacred Saint of the Nihil Empire._"

There was a sudden impact to the air between them, an invisible shock wave that tossed her long locks of dark hair and ruffled Akar's immaculate robes. For a moment, Visas's body shimmered as if a mirage.

Akar let out a thunderous roar of anger. The walls cracked and split around him as he made his wrath known, yet Visas remained untouched where she knelt still, her head now touching the floor. The Saint bellowed again, and extended a hand toward the lone Miraluka, lifting her off the ground to hold her helpless before him.

"_Fool!_" he hissed. "_There is no place under the bond for you. You have bought yourself no mercy, only given me your soul unhindered._"

Visas answered him with a smile, her face a vision of peace.

Enraged, he passed his hand over her and her body began to dissolve. Caught in his grip, Visas did not struggle even as her body was reduced to a vaporous cloud. In a deep breath, Akar Xiylehn absorbed her very life force into himself. The black robes that lay like shed skin were the only signs of Visas' existence.

No sooner was Visas no more than a blue incandescence burst forth from the darkness behind Akar's mask. Unlike the ghostly blue of the Relay worlds, or the sickly blue of Darth Oden's destructive powers, this was a pure blue; a symbol of life rather than death.

He screamed a transcendental scream and clutched at his cowled head, as if trying to hold it together, and the light built in intensity, brightening until it was nearly pure white.

From behind the plexicrete barrier, Kuryama watched with awe. She stood motionless, watching, tears for Visas streaming down her face, until the light imploded on itself and forever silenced Akar's scream. His body fell to the floor, burnt and smoking, completely and utterly dead.

Kuryama knew without a doubt that she'd just seen the Force unleashed.

She could hardly believe it was all over.

Suddenly, she felt Force shades winking into existence all around her. Dead Nihil Pariahs and some of the spirits of the Treason Wall were come to thank her. She knew so many of their names: Kess, Myr, Kal, Salus, Soriente, Kalagi, Lazza... Kuryama went rigid as one in particular approached her.

The glowing figure of Visas Marr's Force shade, with soft, expressive eyes her body hadn't possessed in life, was one of the most beautiful things Kuryama had ever seen. There was a contented smile on her face, one she'd hardly ever used in life.

Kuryama was instantly humbled by sorrow for this woman who had given everything to help her succeed. "I'm sorry I drove you to this, Visas," she said with her head down, meaning every word.

Visas' shade put a hand under Kuryama's chin, lifted her head up. "I made the decision, Kuryama, not you. Friendship and love are bonds onto themselves, the Force simply makes them stronger. I have loved you from the moment I first touched your echo in the Force, and our friendship has only made the both of us stronger. Your strength and understanding allowed me to finally put aside my scars. I am at peace now, with the Force and with myself."

She was suddenly alone with the Force shade, and Visas' expression turned dire. "Kuryama, Revan needs you. In joining with the Sacred Saint, I was given a brief vision of the line of prophecy that he had been leeching from Revan, thus blinding him. The Nihil tear themselves apart as we speak. Darth Oden is seizing his chance to take control of the Fleet of Unification that approaches Coruscant. He will destroy the Senate and forever rend the Republic. You have done what you must here, with me, but now I fear only you can bring Oden to an end."

* * *

The raging battle in the streets was even more chaotic than it had at first appeared to the three. Atton, Rigel, and Mira found themselves caught in the midst of furious, brutal urban warfare.

Even if a lot of the combatants didn't have weapons, the pervasive hand-to-hand was every bit as deadly as the sporadic ranged combat. An open brawl on the streets had no rules, and anything and everything could be used as a weapon. Broken debris was picked up by numerous hands and used to bludgeon and maim, the heads and bodies of combatants were crashed through glass windows or slammed into unyielding walls by the rampaging mobs.

Even worse were the semi-organized groups consisting of little break-offs of Nihil military forces, split almost equally between the two warring factions. Well-armed and trained, they were small but lethal cliques, holing up in routed buildings and creating vicious crossfire.

Distinguishing between the two sides was sometimes frightfully difficult, the only difference being the miraluka's lack of the masks that were so signature to the Nihil.

An armed contingent of the enigmatic people accompanied the three of them. Lillik, the man who'd spoken to Mira, had offered to help them reach their ship and they had welcomed the assistance. A few of them were remarkably good shots, earning Mira's respect and Rigel's grudging admiration. Even so, navigating the hazardous streets was anything but easy. The group moved as fast as they could, gunning and hacking down any opposition from the Nihil who came charging at them from all directions, screaming and howling from behind their obsolete masks.

The enemy forces pressed in close around them as they approached the ruins of the shattered building in which Rigel and Atton had landed and hid the resourceful _Whitecap_. Atton shot from the shoulder with a rapid-firing Nihil energy rifle, mowing down unarmed hostiles that were attempting to storm their precarious position just behind a flaming crater filled with the burned-out hulks of transport vehicles. Mira lobbed a grenade into the face of the white tide, watched as the orange explosion enveloped the front-runners, sending charred bodies and limbs flying in all directions. Rigel crept over the lip of the crater to send sprays of repeater fire into the disarrayed Nihil.

There was desperate yelling in several languages and suddenly they were moving again. Heavy fire was now raging around them, and several miraluka were hit and went down hard, soon at the mercy of the white-armored mob. The fallen ones were dead within moments, and there was nothing any of the others could do but keep on running, shooting and slicing at their foes as they went.

Finally they reached the structure. Mira screamed at Lillik and his few men to follow them into the debris field where once had stood the majestic building. Twisted girders and giant shifting mounds of pulverized rock alternately left them exposed or concealed from their enemies. The underlying framework of the building was still mostly intact, the ghosts of its mighty walls little more than stripped skeletons trailing streamers of melted steel, offering only a shadow of protection from the battle.

Somewhere in the field of smoldering debris, Rigel promised, was his cloaked cargo yacht.

As the white hordes converged on the small group of beleaguered companions, masses of those without masks, the miraluka, were moving to counter, and soon a heated crossfire enveloped the broken building. Atton, Mira, and Rigel, as well as Lillik and his men, were trapped in the middle of the deadly firefight.

From his former experience as a soldier, Atton knew better than to stand between the lines of a heated battle, and pulled everyone down under what cover they could find. At the same time, Rigel came to an unsettling conclusion. Between all the weapons fire raging back and forth across the mountain of debris, some of it should have glanced off the _Whitecap_'s hull, and nothing had. The ship wasn't there.

Over the din of the battle, he yelled in Atton's ear. "I think the ship's been buried by the debris!"

Atton was none too happy. "What!"

"We're right here the middle, right where we parked, and the ship ain't here! It's underneath us!"

"Maybe the Nihil found it, Rigel!" Mira suggested while she ducked behind a flat stone wall fragment, firing with her blaster over the edge.

"If they did then we're dead!" Rigel got on the ground and started digging.

Caught between the two opposing lines of fire, there was very little the others could do to preserve their lives other than help Rigel dig for the ship. To the relief of all, however, the ship was neither gone nor buried deep. Under just a few inches of dirt, dust, and rubble, Rigel made contact with the invisible hull of the _Whitecap_. It took just a few minutes longer for him to find the forward hatch.

"Come on, let's go!" he screamed, and Atton, Mira, and Lillik - whose companions were by now all dead - quickly rushed to the opening. Lillik, the last of them, took a shot straight to the back as dove into the ship, falling into Mira's arms, bleeding profusely.

Atton crashed the door shut and Rigel lurched into the cockpit to get the ship running.

As Mira held him, she saw Lillik's hood had fallen back. Aside from eyes bleached entirely white, his astonishingly human face was strikingly handsome. And this the Nihil termed a hideous disfigurement of life. Mira was appalled at their callousness.

Despite the obvious damage to his eyes, Lillik seemed perfectly able to see her, and gave a lively smile even as his pulse weakened and his breath grew shallow. "Freedom is beauty," were the last words of his life.

For an instant, Mira felt tears welling up in her eyes for this man she hardly even knew. However, the ship lurched suddenly, sending her tumbling about the floor grasping wildly for something solid to hold onto, and her thoughts instantly turned to more immediate problems. Her stomach threatened to empty itself as she felt the whole ship surge upward, inertial dampeners either ineffective or disabled in _Whitecap_'s stealth mode. Giant beams and girders sliding off the plating of the ship made a horrendous noise inside the hold until the cargo yacht was free of the debris mound and in the open sky.

Rigel pointed the nose up and gunned the engines.

In the space above Malayvin, the guns of the massive Nihil fleet were turned on itself. Chaos reigned in space as it had on the surface, but now they had the advantage of stealth. Shrouded in its cloaking field, the _Whitecap_ skirted the battle and made for the clear, ready for hyperspace.

As they began their journey back towards Republic space, no one was saying it, but they were all thinking it: Nar Shaddaa.

* * *

The starfighter hummed around Darth Revan as he brought it screaming into its final approach. Less than two minutes ago he'd launched from the hangar of the _Gauntlet_, dropping in out of hyperspace to keep the Nihil capital ship _Holy Vow_ under watch. In a matter of seconds, his tiny ship punched through a blanket of defensive fire and streaked into the hangar of the crablike vessel. Allowing the Force to guide his reflexes, Darthg Revan turned the ship into a crash vector and skidded over the floor of the hangar, the friction shedding enough of the starfighter's speed to keep it from being demolished on the far wall.

In just another few seconds, the weapons in his hands ignited, slicing open the damaged cockpit of the starfighter, and Darth Revan, Lord of the Sith, emerged.

Damage control teams would be on the way, accompanied by security and military forces. He had to move quickly. In a burst of Force speed, he bounded across the hangar to slice open a thick door leading into the fighter squadron arsenal and quickly neutralized the automated defenses in the area.

There was no distraction; commitment was total. A deadly new being arose from the depths of his psyche.

Soulreaper lived.

Soulreaper lived to kill.

The mighty Nihil capital ship Revan stood within was now the flagship of Darth Oden, the Lord of Destruction. He had usurped control of the Nihil's Grand Fleet of Unification as the massive military force split itself in civil war. The Purists, those Nihil still staunchly at war with life under the Force, had flocked to his promise of the destruction of the Republic. His attack on the Senate on Coruscant was now imminent.

Darth Oden employed the services of one Rydak Tyll, of the Clan Izaya, Suppressor of the Force, the one responsible for Bastila's torture. Revan's sweaty palms savored the feel of the hard leather as he clutched the grips of his batonsabres so hard his knuckles went white. He bathed in the anger boiling forth at the renewed thought of the animal Rydak on his wife. The torture - the unendingly inventive torture methods of the Clan Izaya - went deeper than mere physical pain; Rydak had left Bastila barren.

Soulreaper lived to kill all who hurt the ones he loved.

It took Darth Revan ten seconds to slice through the next door and enter the open hallways.

Soulreaper was alive with purpose.

The batonsabres twirled effortlessly in his hands, and the perpendicular blades sliced searing swathes into the floor as Revan advanced on a security detail rushing to the scene of his starfighter's crash in the hangar. The knowledge of ancient Sith Lords past burned through in his motions. His fluidly moving arms and hands guided his twin sabres in savage, brutally accurate attacks, expertly chopping off limbs and severing heads. A light field of sparkling energy cast off from his whirling arms danced in front of him, absorbing or deflecting the piecemeal weapons fire directed at him in retaliation. He moved without hesitation or delay, killing any and all who stood in his way, unconcerned with whomever he might leave behind him. Whether they be mortally wounded or still full of fight, Revan disregarded the survivors. Better to let them regroup and spread the terror of his presence to the others.

Soulreaper was alive and hungry for the blood of Rydak Tyll.

Revan broke off in a run through the ivory halls, powering his way through the Nihil as they came. They were not his targets, they were obstacles. As body after body dropped behind him, there was no thought but for the next slaughter and the next and the next, until finally he would break upon his true adversary and destroy him with a single swipe of a red blade.

He could not use the Force against Rydak, for the sly Sith was well-versed in his talent of neutralizing and commandeering another's gift. But there would be no doubt when Revan's sabre exploded through his neck. With the abomination dead, Bastila's power would be unlocked from his malevolent grip, and the last of his hold on her would be relinquished.

Soulreaper screamed for blood--screamed for the blood of the one who had so abused and tormented the one closest to his heart, forever destroying the chance for children to be born from their union.

Through the sporadic Nihil forces, Revan stormed through the hallways. Turbolifts carried him higher into the ship, and closer yet to the battle bridge, where he expected the Zayan monster to be. Even should he not find Rydak where he expected, there was no longer an unwillingness to search for as long as necessary, Darth Revan and the Soulreaper within would not permit any deviation from his sworn objective. Darth Revan, the unflinching Sith Lord, would wait any length of time to see his plans come to fruition; Soulreaper simply did not care how long it took.

Resistance was thickening, signaling to him that he was come upon the vital parts of the ship. Revan stayed his mind from creating the kinetic barrier before him, opting to ward off the weapons fire with the bare blades of his sabres. He was acutely conscious that any slight mistake in his presence could give Rydak control of his connection to the Force. And in a way he was glad not to use his Force barriers, it served to intensify the battle.

He danced among the Nihil's energy blades, avoiding their attacks while skillfully pressing his own. Drops of sweat flying from his face hissed as they were vaporized by the hot blades of his opponents. He counted his individual breaths as he danced with death.

The Nihil were deprived of the Rayaj, and so could only hold him for so long before he broke into the battle bridge. The slaughter of the bridge crew was so easy for him that Revan had hardly noted all the bodies lying about at their positions before his burning gaze found the object of his hatred.

As the Nihil bridge crew were cut down right in front of him, Rydak awkwardly brought himself into a defensive position, having been caught completely off-guard by Revan's lightning attack. Even so, his crimson blade was handled expertly and turned aside the first blows from Revan's twin sabres.

The Zayan beast fought with inhuman drive, his technique a brutal but unsophisticated style easily overcome with Force attacks. However, pitting the Force against one of his skills was a fatal mistake, and Revan refused to be drawn in by his game of tempting weakness.

Darth Revan would not permit such a lapse in judgment. Soulreaper demanded death.

The sight and smell of his red sabres as they burst through Rydak's neck was intoxicating. At the instant of the Zayan's death, Revan unleashed a Force pulse, and Rydak's severed head and body flew backward into the bulkhead behind, splattering twisted gore and congealed blood over the walls.

As he stood panting, the calculating persona of Darth Revan immediately withdrew from Calum's mind, recognizing the finished deed. But Soulreaper refused to relinquish control. Soulreaper was not satisfied. Soulreaper still craved bloodshed.

A door opened, Darth Oden stepped in to gaze expressionlessly at Revan and the mangled remains of Rydak. "I suppose there is no apprentice, no matter how great, that could have withstood your fury. It is a shame to see a creature of such talent depart. Clan Izaya will never be the same."

Revan's mind already was disregarding Oden's foolish small talk, setting its sights on a new adversary.

He needed only point-two-five seconds to execute.

Soulreaper only wanted more blood.

Revan lunged at Darth Oden with the hot blades of his batonsabres, crossing them across the Sith's chest, and finishing with a violent cutting arc that sliced through flesh and bone. A boiling gash opened on Oden's well-muscled chest, smoking spectacularly and sending up a horrific stench.

But Oden did not fall.

Confounded, Soulreaper's presence wavered gossamer-thin in Revan's mind. Darth Revan, his inner tactician, laughing at his foolish error, took the moment to reassert its control over the blind brute.

Darth Oden stood perfectly still after having taken a lightsabre attack that would have neatly halved any other person in the galaxy, and the ghastly wound closed itself over.

While Revan's mind swam, trying to find equilibrium in the midst of its multiple and conflicting personas, he felt a concussion blast hit him full force. He had no chance to defend against Oden's assault, and lost consciousness before his body even hit the floor.


	15. Of Chaos And Eternal Night

_We never appreciate what we have until it's gone,_ Bastila thought to herself. It was certainly true in regards to her singular gift of the Force. Ever since her capture by Rydak, attempting to use the Force, in even the slightest of ways, had been like falling on her face. She could try just to move the tiniest of objects, her mind expecting an instant projection of power to bring it floating effortlessly into her grasp, but no matter how hard she tried, nothing would happen.

Despite her insistence that she was alright, that she not as helpless without the Force as he might think, Revan couldn't accept what had happened to her. And after the doctors made the discovery that because of her torture she would never have children, Bastila could hardly blame Revan for his unquenchable rage at failing to kill Rydak in his purge of the Force Suppressors.

There had been no reasoning with him when he determined to set foot on Darth Oden's flagship and assassinate Rydak Tyll. She'd tried--it was like trying to reason with a flash flood. The Revan who'd taken a single starfighter from the _Gauntlet_'s hangar to board the Nihil ship _Holy Vow_ was not the Revan she knew, not the Jedi named Calum Jan she'd married. He was not only Dark Lord of the Sith in all his glory, but he was driven by a terrifying resolve.

Bastila had only seen him commit his whole being to a singular purpose so fully once before; on the Star Forge when he'd fought Malak. And then, just as now, the focus of his whole commitment was the same thing; her.

He would have fought the entire galaxy for her, and somehow, would find a way to succeed.

The broken Nihil fleet the Oden led loosely was beginning to coalesce into a cohesive whole when she felt the glorious, welcoming sensation of the Force returning to her.

A small victory in the face of the new crisis.

When the Nihil fleets lost their direction, became lost and divided amongst themselves, Darth Oden had been quick to step into the power vacuum and had quickly gained a following among the Nihil still committed to the death of the Force. He now led a much-diminished Nihil fleet towards the Republic capital world of Coruscant. The two Sith ships still under Revan's leadership, damaged and limping from battle, could do little more than keep tabs on the threat he posed.

"Bastila, the shuttle has arrived." An accented voice roused Bastila from her reverie, bringing her mind back into focus.

She still marveled that Juhani had survived. When Revan and the remains of his landing party had come aboard after the raid on Malayvin, the Cathar had sustained such horrifying wounds that Bastila could see no hope that she would live. There had been more red hot shrapnel in her body than blood and flesh. Revan put all the Sith surgeons on hand to work removing the steel fragments while he held onto her life with everything he possessed.

And so here she stood, still persistent in her self-imposed duty as Revan and Bastila's bodyguard.

"Thank you, Juhani, I will be down shortly."

It seemed hope yet remained.

A short time ago, a new fleet had appeared on long-range sensors; more Nihil ships, dozens of them. Prepared for battle, Sith Commander Jalek had been surprised to find himself hailed instead, and was soon face to face with none other than the Jedi Exile herself, pledging the assistance of herself and the forces of the Miraluka Fleet, the other side of the split in the Nihil, those who had emrbaced the Force as it was given them.

Kuryama Nari had been Revan's most trusted confidant and general during his old wars, and she said she had a plan. Bastila knew she would be a fool not to hear the woman out. She offered hope in the face of defeat.

* * *

The shuttle made its final approach into the Sith Interdictor's hangar, its inner hold swaying and tilting in the maneuvers as Kuryama thought about justice. It meant different things to so many different people. Justice was balance, justice was fairness, justice was chance and chaos... justice was revenge.

Her thoughts stuck on that thread, remembering Jilon. His sense of justice, once the envy of prospective Jedi and warmly approved of by many Masters, had been warped and contorted into a quest for nothing but revenge. He hadn't died the man she'd known and loved. The man she'd fallen in love with, the man whose heart and soul she thought she could see into, was long dead by the time he fell in battle.

In the short period she'd been with him, Kuryama had been closer to Jilon than anyone else. But when she saw him again, some ten years later, he no longer resembled that person. So twisted was he by his hatred of Norryl, a former friend, that he was little more than a stranger to her.

The ramp cracked open, and Kuryama banished the thoughts from her mind. Life was the future, not the past.

Eight maroon-robed, hooded Miraluka guards filed out before her, forming a line of honor outside the shuttle in the hangar, where waited an additional escort of silver-armored Sith troopers and the person with which she needed to confer.

Exiting the ship, she clasped hands warmly with the waiting Bastila Shan. "It's good to see you again."

Bastila returned the handshake. "Likewise."

As they walked, Kuryama immediately began talking. "I'm afraid we're running out of time. Darth Oden means to destroy the Senate and bring about the final end of the Republic."

"That is exactly what worries us, Kuryama. Unfortunately, until you came upon us, we were of no strength to do anything but watch. Oden commands a sizable fleet of his own; Nihil Purists who still control much of their grand fleet. Revan left to assassinate him, but we have had no word of his success or failure."

Kuryama ran a hand through her dark hair as she shook her head regretfully. Urgency had never been more plain in her gray eyes. "I don't think there's anything Revan can do to stop Oden. He isn't simply strong in the Force, he has powers none of us can even fathom. He died on Malachor V in a preliminary Mandalorian attack; I saw him sink into the mud impaled by shrapnel, felt his death in the Force. But he still lives.

"I may be the only one able to kill him, or, failing that, turn him aside from this course."

Kuryama stopped, looked Bastila in the eye. "However, before we even need to worry about stopping Darth Oden, we'll need to engage his fleet and get aboard his ship. To that effect I have several plans we should discuss with Commander Jalek..."

* * *

Pickets on the outskirts of the Coruscant system picking up the approaching fleets on sensors urgently signaled the Republic orbital and planet-side garrisons. Quickly, a tattered collection of half-repaired cruisers, half-finished frigates, a meager few destroyers, and several obsolete gunboats formed a loose formation in orbit around the Republic's glittering capital world.

Out of the void came over two dozen enemy warships with support vessels. Of all sizes, armaments, and classifications, their crab-like profiles, cut by sharp, gaping swathes down the sides, advanced at a steady pace toward the Republic line. Small in comparison to a typical Nihil fleet, it was still more than enough to easily overwhelm the token Republic resistance. Admiral Onasi had gone down with the best they could muster, fallen in battle above Telos with the finest in the navy, leaving little with which to protect the capital.

The frightened crews of the ragged defensive line did what they could to prepare for what would surely be the last battle of their lives.

There was another mass hyperspace exodus, and suddenly the Nihil fleet had more than doubled its number. Or so it appeared. The newly-arrived fleet was led in the front by a pair of Sith warships, and seemed to be in pursuit.

The ships bearing down on Coruscant slowed, came about and faced the newcomers. Breathless Republic crews watched in disbelief as their enemies began firing on each other.

Aboard the Sith ships, the perspective was quite a bit different.

Commander Jalek and his new allies, the break-away Nihil forces of the Miraluka, caught and engaged their prey, Darth Oden and the Nihil Purists. Divided into battle-groups, his fleet began picking apart the less disciplined enemy. They opened up with a dense hail of massive cannon fire, committing every ship on either side of the battle line into the fight, and then started to focus on objectives.

The Sith Interdictor ship and destroyer moved forward in the center with two battle-groups, and under heavy enemy fire proceeded to flatten the opposing line as the Nihil attempted to flank and destroy them. Explosions rippled through the hulls of ships on either side as more Miraluka battle-groups engaged the Nihil forces as they neatly spread themselves out in long, trailing, vulnerable flank lines, easily encircled and enveloped.

Pierced by the spearhead of Jalek's warships and crushed between the grip of the pressing battle-groups, the Nihil suffered disproportionate casualties at the hands of the Miraluka. Two heavy cruisers combusted, vaporizing smaller support ships. A carrier and three destroyers were crippled, their hulls blanketed by torpedo fire that left them little more than scoured hulks. Scores of single fighters burned in their hangars from blistering ship-to-ship blasting.

But even as they were pressed tighter and tighter into a seemingly unsalvageable predicament, the Nihil rebounded.

Frigates, gunboats, and even light destroyers took up suicide runs, ramming themselves into the hulls of the attacking Miraluka ships. Seven ships detonated in searing explosions and there was suddenly a gaping hole in the encirclement.

The Nihil flowed through the gap and threatened to turn the predator to prey, turning the flank of the opposing fleet. In the melee, however, the Miraluka fleet wedged themselves between the Nihil and Coruscant, blockading the way with their armor and cannons.

So the Nihil came on savagely. Their ships broke up into smaller groups and engaged the Miraluka battle-groups individually, turning the battle from one giant scrap into a series of smaller-scale, increasingly brutal skirmishes.

Maintaining fleet cohesion for either faction soon became impossible as the commanders quickly lost track of the situation. Though Jalek was more experienced and in a better position to hold onto his formation than his opponent, the battle soon wrestled itself beyond even his ability to control and was left, by necessity, to the individual ship captains and battle-group commanders.

Hordes of fighters emerged from hangars yet undamaged by the furious fighting and battled for dominance above and about the engaged ships, each side trying to clear the way for their own bomber forces to attack the enemy while denying the other such opportunity. Auto-turrets on both sides locked onto and destroyed ship after ship, adding their comparatively tiny explosions to the larger symphony of fire and demise that played out around them.

In its own beautiful, chaotic way the raging battle achieved a strange equilibrium. The two forces, once set fully and irrevocably against each other, proved just how capable they both were, and each effectively nullified the other, creating in their midst a swirling field of deadly combat. Single fighters and bomber craft swarmed between the ships, battling among themselves while they dodged the giant energy blasts the bigger ships hurled back and forth, deflecting off shields, scorching the silver sheen of unshielded hulls, denting and smashing through armor plating to erupt mid-deck in brilliant blooms of boiling fire.

Everything eventually centered itself around a single nucleus; the mighty capital ship _Holy Vow_, a Nihil Purist vessel and Darth Oden's flagship, and the equal opposition of Commander Jalek's own Interdictor _Gauntlet_ and supporting destroyer _Righteous Judgment_. Keeping _Holy Vow_ engaged and distracted from Coruscant was Jalek's overriding objective, as Kuryama had put it, the most important aspect of the whole engagement. He had only to keep Oden in place long enough.

Whereas Malak had always trusted Admiral Karath in naval matters, from the beginning Jalek had been Revan's first choice in a battle, even if he was of a lower rank and less capable of directing large campaigns. Despite not being quite the supreme commander Karath was, the man was excellent at holding an enemy, and did so against the Nihil with his usual comfortable efficiency, buying time for a single, rust-colored freighter armed to the teeth with hastily-added weaponry and additional armor to run straight down the throat of the enemy.

Under the able hands of a crack Sith blockade runner, the _Ebon Hawk_ slipped through the veil of discouraging fire from _Holy Vow_ and penetrated its hangar to deploy a well-prepared strike team. Silver-armored Sith soldiers and Jedi advanced into the hangar side by side.

* * *

Their red, tan, and gray robes standing out against the silver armor of the Sith soldiers, Juhani, Bastila, and Kuryama led the squad forward into the hangar. Lightsabres of blue, gold, and viridian ignited in their hands as the soldiers behind them raised their rifles.

They were expected; a whole contingent of Nihil soldiers had gathered in the hangar, and opened fire as they came out from the protective shelter of the _Hawk_'s frame. The Sith, highly-trained and battle-minded, immediately broke for cover, splintering into mini-squads of four or five men each to take individual positions. The three Jedi with their whirling lightsabres fought screening maneuvers, warding off enemy fire to allow their force to move from cover to cover, edging toward the bulkhead doors and the interior of the ship.

The air around Bastila shimmered and sparkled as she fought, steady waves of the Force wafting from her to pass over the entire hangar. She was using a hidden technique of battle meditation Revan had helped her unlock. It was restricted to smaller-scale application but wrought more intense effects. Emboldened, the Sith threw themselves forward with passion and the Nihil broke before them, their wills eroded by the invasive influence of Bastila's power.

Jedi and Sith stormed through the last of the hangar guard and tore into the open hallways.

Light from Kuryama's viridian blade danced in her gray eyes as she ran as fast as she could, leading her allies deeper into the ship.

In short order the Nihil coalesced in opposition, presenting a serious impediment in the comparatively narrow confines of the halls. Even bolstered by Bastila's Force powers, going forward became a frustratingly slow task for the silver.

Her blade flashed back and forth, deflecting shots from Nihil rifles and parrying their black energy swords, hacking off limbs, beheading, and running through the howling Nihil as they came charging at her.

The Sith did an excellent job of holding their own, their blanket of blaster fire gradually pinning down the loose groups of Nihil who still tried to hurl themselves forward despite the heavy losses.

Twirling her lightsabre to deflect a brace of shots into the wall beside her, Kuryama leaned over to Bastila. "Can you sense him?"

Bastila nodded. "Yes, let's go."

She quickly laid a hand on Juhani's shoulder and the Cathar nodded in kind. She and the Sith were to draw out the bulk of the Nihil guard forces while Kuryama and Bastila sought Revan and Oden. Juhani had been opposed to the plan, as she thought it interfered with her duty to protect Revan and Bastila, but she recognized that there was no one else for them to turn to, and eventually agreed.

If things went bad, they would fall back to the _Hawk_ and attempt to hold from there. But until then her objective was to keep the Nihil busy in order to allow the two Jedi time to reach their objective.

Raising her hands, Juhani released a furious Force pulse down the hall. Lights shattered overhead, wall panels and and floor plates were stripped from the rivets as the pulse howled down the hall, its thundering power wreaking casualties among the Nihil and providing an excellent distraction

Too busy shielding themselves from the debris, none of the enraged white-masked soldiers noticed Kuryama and Bastila slipping away into a narrow maintenance shaft that led further up into the ship. Bastila took the lead, feeling the way by her connection with Revan. The two did not speak in order to preserve Bastila's concentration. She would often close her eyes, shutting out the world around her to let the Force alone guide her movements.

With her companion lost in concentration, Kuryama could not let her guard down for an instant. Her viridian lightsabre burned brightly in her hand. Even despite Juhani's diversion, roving Nihil patrols still found them, and Kuryama showed them no mercy. There was no margin for error; if resistance could yet gather in sufficient numbers, their entire mission would be put in jeopardy, and with it the ultimate fate of the Republic.

Either by lightsabre or by the Force, no Nihil walked away from an encounter with her.

Eventually, neither Bastila nor Kuryama needed help to know where they were going. The unmistakable signature of Darth Oden's power was radiating all around them and growing stronger by the moment.

Soon, they stepped out onto an observation deck, a vast open chamber surrounded on three sides by massive windows that opened out into space, providing a panoramic view of the battle raging all about the ship. Visible just beyond the seething curtain of explosions and energy blasts was the sparkling world of Coruscant.

At the end of the deck, Kuryama could see two figures standing side by side. As they drew near, one of the figures turned, Darth Oden presenting his dark countenance to them.

"So now we are all here," he said in an almost welcoming manner. "It's good you have come. The time is nearly upon us."

Kuryama stopped and stared blankly at him, unable to summon words. Bastila strode ahead and approached the second figure who stood staring bleakly out the windows at the furious battle, the one she knew to be Revan.

"I'm so sorry, Bastila. I failed everyone. I failed the Jedi, I failed the Sith, I failed Jalek, and I failed you."

Bastila put an arm over his shoulder, turned his reluctant, damp eyes toward hers. "You did everything anyone could expect from you. You kept your promise to Izayus and to me. I can feel Rydak is dead. My power has returned, for which I am eternally grateful." He didn't look to be comforted by her sentiment, if anything, it only seemed to upset him further. Rarely had she ever seen Revan so distraught. The only other time she could remember gave her chills.

"Bastila," he nearly sobbed, "I let Soulreaper out."

She then realized that this was not Revan talking, not Revan of the Sith with a plan for the galaxy. It was Calum Jan, the man who'd wept over Malak's corpse, the man she'd married. She encircled his waist with her arm and hugged him close to her.

"I let him out and he took over. I wanted Rydak dead so bad it was like Aleksie all over again. Only this time I didn't just kill my friend, I think I just killed everyone."

As much as she wanted nothing more than to comfort Calum, Bastila needed Revan, needed him to stand strong. If civilization survived, there'd be time for comfort later.

She gave him a shake, addressed him firmly. "Revan," she said, "you did what you could, what you needed to do. Nothing more, nothing less. Stop crucifying yourself over Soulreaper--he did what he needed to and you know that."

The words had the desired effect. His breathing grew less shaky and firmness returned to his posture. Revan looked at her and some of the fire was back in his eyes.

"I'm sorry for that," he apologized. "But you need to understand. Oden cannot be killed."

Bastila turned back to Kuryama and the Sith Lord in question. "It's my hope that he will not need to be."

* * *

"It's been a long time since Malachor V, General."

"Indeed it has. But you were a different person then, Oden."

"So I was. And so were you."

Kuryama grunted to herself. He had a point. "Yes. I guess the years will change a person. Especially someone like me."

Darth Oden held out a hand, inviting her to come closer. She obliged cautiously. "I'm glad you're here, General. You, of all people, deserve to see the beginning of a true civilization. Make no mistake, I hold no ill will toward you or Revan, or anyone else for that matter. I consider you my friends.

"My whole life was spent working to do good, to serve the people I so dearly loved. But eventually I realized that the society I was fighting to protect, the people I loved more than my own self, didn't exist."

He turned his face out the observation windows, toward Coruscant, where waited the Republic Senate and entire core of the galactic government. "The Republic as idealized in its propaganda throughout the galaxy is a myth, an illusion, a facade thrown up to cover the awful truth of just what kind of a society it has become. Freedom is slowly but surely suffocated in the iron grasp of corrupt government officials who care more about their own ambitions than their duties and responsibilities. Justice is all ignored in favor of bribes and a blind eye turned to the truth. Equal opportunity for all is ruthlessly crushed by rampant racism and bigotry among those in power.

"Just how can such a civilization limp through three devastating wars? Should it even? In the face of such trial, either it unites for the common defense, or it divides into thousands of tiny fragments, to die piece by agonizing piece. This Republic is long past uniting, its back is broken by these conflicts. It is a dying beast that needs to be put out of its misery. That is the most mercy that can be granted it."

Kuryama crossed her arms and stared out into the fiery ballet of death and destruction that thundered around the ship, against the glittering backdrop of the city of Coruscant. "What good will it do to destroy the capital of the Republic and kill millions of innocent people?"

Oden sighed in frustration. "How can you not see? When creating a masterpiece, will an artist work with a stained canvas? Or will he use one that is blank and clear of imperfections? Building a true civilization must be done from the ground up, not in and around the ruins of the old.

"Chaos is the base form of all things, and only from chaos can true creation begin. With the core of the Republic destroyed, the facade will fall, the balance reset. Then will the path be clear for the rise of a new society."

His was not the argument of a power-hungry, totalitarian dictator as Kuryama might have expected. Far more disturbing, his rationale was temptingly realistic, even wise in its own twisted way. These were the man's true motivations; he truly believed that if he destroyed enough, eventually all would be born anew, as he had been on the pyre of Malachor V.

Rightfully was he named Darth Oden, Lord of Destruction. The word 'oden', Kuryama had learned from her knowledge of the Nihil language, meant 'great destroyer.' It was more fitting than perhaps he even knew.

"And what about the people in the midst of this upheaval, Oden? What of the millions who will die from the aftershock when the galactic trade system collapses? What of the untold billions whose existence will be reduced to a miserable half-life as they dredge about in hopeless anarchy? What of the bloodthirsty tyrants who rise to fill the power vacuum, to go on to reign through orgies of terror, torture, and murder every bit as horrific as the Mandalorians did?"

Oden grimaced, his tone almost regretful. "Those who survive will become stronger for it. The strong ones will inherit the future, and build their own destinies." He frowned at her in puzzlement. "Why do you still fight for them? Have you seen Onderon? Have you seen Dantooine? Telos, Taris, Ryloth? Havens for the corrupt, dens of thieves, backbiters, and liars of every stripe and color. Why - or even more to the point - how can you fight for such a society?"

Kuryama brushed some dark hair from her face, gray eyes becoming distant. "Yes, I've seen Onderon, Dantooine, the others. Yes, I know of the scum and villainy that inevitably permeates a corrupted society.

"I do not fight for them, not for a backward and indolent government. It is the life and freedom of the people, the good people of the Republic who have not yet disappeared from the galaxy, that I still fight.

"You forget, Oden, that I have seen the other worlds too. The non-aligned worlds scattered throughout the Core and Mid-Rim, and the vast swathes of them on the Outer Rim. Teman, Proteron, Ilonus, Ejarved, Otthala--remember my travels in exile? On those worlds and many others I have not even named, your vaunted chaos reigns supreme. The difference, Oden, between your vision and reality, is that those worlds have been in such anarchy for the last four millennia. Where is the new order of which you prophesy? Thousands of years have made no difference, the misery remains as it has always been."

Oden had no answer for her. She heard Jalek's voice alerting her on the radio. "General, this is Commander Jalek reporting, _Gauntlet_ has lost engines and _Righteous Judgment_ has lost forward shields and spine turrets. We are no longer able to keep the enemy flagship from orbit. I offer my life for my failure."

"Yours is not the failure, Commander, you've done everything you can," Kuryama radioed back. "I'm afraid the battle is beyond your control now."

"Yes, General."

Overhearing, Darth Oden smiled at the short little exchange. "It would seem, then, that the Republic's time has finally run out."

Kuryama stepped back from the giant windows, watching in horror as the massive Nihil ship moved past the enormous burning hulks of dead ships, pushed through the blooming explosions and curtains of cannon fire, breaking through into high orbit around Coruscant itself. At the fore of the gigantic vessel, a crescent-shaped undulation in the hull sharpened like a knife-blade, the terrifying blue glow of Oden's fearsome power was building, swirling, gathering in intensity like a hurricane. This time his power would not be unleashed against a military force, but instead a city of billions of people.

He was committed, prepared to reap a harvest of innocents to achieve his goals.

As he was committed, so now was she.

"Orann," Kuryama called to him, using his true name, "you have a son."

Suddenly, Darth Oden went rigid. The blue firestorm gathering in the prow of the ship stabilized as he stood stock still, not moving a muscle. With him facing away from her, she couldn't see his face, and could only guess at what might be coursing through his mind, if anything.

"His name is Kurt. He lives on Devrita with my mother. He must be almost ten by now." Thinking of her son - Orann's son - threatened to bring tears to her eyes, but Kuryama fought them down. That would not do; not here, not now.

Oden still did not move or say a word. His seething lake of power boiled lethargically but did not grow.

"I loved you, Orann. The Force only knows how much I loved you. We both cherished life, and even despite all the death around us, we were able to take comfort and strength from the hope we saw in each other. Surely you remember? Do you think nothing of that time?

"Should I recant to you the many nights we spent in passion, reveling in our newfound freedom away from the Jedi Temple? That was a love of life lived to its fullest, Orann.

"I left Kurt with my mother on Devrita because there was no life for him beside me in exile. I wanted him to have the opportunity to live as he would; not in anarchy and misery but in an ordered world full of promise and potential. Do you disregard the value of life so casually and so callously that you would subject your own son to this barbaric future of yours, a future you know cannot possibly come to pass?"

The words were pouring straight from Kuryama's heart as she spoke them, and she was brought to tears despite her crumbling efforts to keep them at bay. It no longer mattered if she held them back.

Slowly, Oden turned to face her. She cringed at his stricken expression.

"Why did you not tell me?" he asked in a small, hurt voice.

Kuryama felt the same as she had at the end of her first day of war, when she'd seen Jedi Padawans Tave and Barek, two of her closest friends, die in bloody heaps at her feet. Every fiber of her being wanted to do as she had done then, and hurl herself sobbing into his arms. But she couldn't. Instead, she stood where she was, tears streaming down her cheeks, and told him the truth.

In a wavering, unsteady tone, she told him the last words she would ever have wanted to speak. "Oh, Orann, I was afraid."

There was silence, and then Oden reeled as if he'd been struck in the abdomen. The pulsating blue light of his power extinguished from the prow of the Nihil ship, and he let out a desolate cry of agony and shame as he collapsed to his knees. A sickly, liquid light burst from his chest, oozed over his fingers as he clutched the ghostly wound with his hands. Deathly blue, the liquid glow seemed to drain away his very life as Oden knelt gasping for air between cries of pain.

The blue turned to red, suddenly drenching him in thick blood.

Unable to restrain herself anymore, Kuryama rushed to him. She threw her arms around Orann Dalez and hugged him tight against her, sobbing openly over his shoulder.

"I'm so sorry, Orann," she cried helplessly, cradling his head as she lowered him to the floor. His blood soaked into her slate-gray robes in long, wide stains across her chest.

Orann moved his hand urgently, whispered to her. "I must signal the other ships. Stop the fighting."

Hurriedly, Kuryama brought him a holo-transmitter. Coughing on his own blood, he gave his fleet their last orders. "All vessels surrender and disarm. The Crusade is over."

The room was suddenly filled with angry holograms, Nihil Purists demanding to know the reason for surrender. With surprising power and firmness considering his condition, Orann thundered at the insubordinate captains.

"Your crusade is over! Surrender your ships and lay down your weapons or else take your own lives!"

He fell back into horrid, wracking coughs that spewed forth more than blood. Mixed in with the blood came thick, slimy gray muck bubbling from his mouth. It spilled over his robes, hurling itself in little fountains on everything close by with every wretched spasm of his throat. The mud leaked from his eyes, his ears, his nose, covering his face with filthy grime.

The coughing was replaced by desperate choking, and soon even that ceased as the body of Orann Dalez twitched and convulsed a final time and he lay silently still, at peace at last.

Kuryama, her robes, face, and hair caked in layers of blood, sweat, mud, and tears, looked over at the silently observing couple, Revan and Bastila. She wiped her eyes with one hand and extended her other toward them.

"I'm going home," she said, "would you like to come with me?"


	16. Epilogue

The elegant splendor of the office made little impression on Revan as he paced back and forth among his loyal Miraluka guards. Refreshed after several straight days of sitting in Sith infirmaries, sleep, meditation, and most recently, a wonderful night with Bastila, Revan was impatient to tend to the important matters that would not take care of themselves. Kuryama had long since left, but he supposed she had earned her peace.

His was the responsibility to pick up the pieces. There was much to be decided.

Revan's ears perked despite not having heard a thing, his Force perceptions alerted him to a visitor's approach. Wryly, he reminded himself that, technically, he was the visitor.

When he entered the office - his own office - the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic was taken aback at seeing Revan, arrayed in his finest Sith attire, escorted by a dozen muscular men in maroon robes whose expansive hoods concealed their eyes, standing in the middle of the room as if he owned it. The Chancellor regarded him with deep suspicion, surprised panic plain enough in his eyes for Revan to tell he was seconds away from summoning guards.

Revan quickly moved to allay his fears. "Greetings, Chancellor," he said warmly, smiling, extending his hand in friendship. "It is good to see you again."

Politic despite being off-balance, the Chancellor took the proffered hand. He had a firm grip. "It has been some time."

Revan invited him to sit. It was, after all, the man's office. "I apologize if I have alarmed you. I'm afraid this is what I am now, and anything else would be a misrepresentation of the truth. Sith or not, however, it is not my intention to bring you to harm. That was yesterday's war, not today's."

"Very well," the Chancellor stipulated, sitting behind his grand desk. "You must realize, Revan, that for almost as long as the Republic has been in existence, the Sith have sought to destroy it. It is only natural, then, for us to fear your presence."

Revan nodded. "I wish it were not so, Chancellor, I truly do. But wishing for the past to be different is pointless. I've come here to consider the future."

The Chancellor folded his hands before him on his desk. "What is it, then? You see the sorry state of our armed forces and wish to take the opportunity to demand our surrender?"

It was said in a perfectly diplomatic voice, without even a trace of resentment or anger, but Revan still winced at the naked accusation. Winced because that was exactly what he was here to do. That it was not for the reasons the Chancellor believed did not at all soften the blow.

Revan sat before the Chancellor's desk, the twelve Miraluka falling into rank behind him. "Chancellor, your Republic is splintering as we speak. I know the condition you were in after the end of Malak's war and you were already on the brink of collapse. The grim truth is you've passed that point. Systems are breaking away by the day. This government was ravaged by the latest conflict. No star system wants to become another Telos, or another Dantooine. After all, what faith can you have in a government that lacks even the resources to defend its own?

"If you are to preserve the ordered society the Republic represents, you have only one choice; you must declare martial law." The Chancellor sat speechless for a moment before Revan elaborated. "Unfortunately, for you, even this is impossible. You have almost no military left. What rebuilding was done after Malak's war was completely undone by the Nihil's crusade to end the Force. Simply put, you are powerless to stop the disintegration of the Republic.

"But while you are stuck in this dilemma, I have one of my own. With the sudden breakup of the Nihil as a race, I find myself at the head of a vastly replenished Sith Empire. No longer is it the mere remnants left behind after Malak's war. Not only has a vast portion of the Nihil Grand Fleet, thousands of ships and millions of men, come under my control, but also billions who have fled the from the raging civil war in the Nihil Empire now look up to me as their leader. By the time their fledgling Outer Rim colonies will have a chance to flourish, your Republic will be nothing but Coruscant and a few toothless star systems still clinging to the carcass, the rest of the galaxy a fractured pot of anarchy. Without the Republic as a trading partner, there could be no establishment of a new, prosperous Miraluka society, and I would rule quite an empty empire indeed."

"To what point is this, Revan?" the Chancellor asked impatiently.

Revan waved his hand as if to dispel the trivialities of his rationale. "There is a solution that would be mutually beneficial to both our interests."

"Speak then. As you said, I have few options for recourse."

This was the hardest part of the bargain, the part Revan knew he had to press. "Join with the Sith Empire."

The Chancellor sat back, smiling indulgently. "Many things are negotiable, Lord Revan, but the Republic and the Sith Empire are completely incompatible with one another. One quarrels and strives against the other, seeking its destruction, as it has always been."

"In the past, I would agree that this was certainly true. But look around, the Sith are all but gone from the galaxy. Their empire is made up of men like any others who now look to me for direction and leadership. I want the killing to stop, the last decade has seen far too much of it. And understand, Chancellor, that it need not be a formal annexation. The truth is, if I wished to, I could have my Miraluka armies conquer all the important Republic worlds, and I would then, in essence, control it. What I suggest need only be a formal economic and military alliance, if you wish.

"The simple fact is, you will need my forces to hold this Republic together. Some star systems may howl in protest, they may attempt to revolt, but you will need an iron fist to keep them in line. This does not sound pretty and I assure you it is not, but the civilization the Republic represents cannot be allowed to dissolve."

"What you are suggesting then," the Chancellor said, leaning forward, "is that I turn the Republic into a virtual dictatorship to be enforced by your armies?"

Revan sighed. "If you do not, the Republic will continue to split and divide until there is nothing left of it, and everything it once stood for will be gone forever. Understand, Chancellor, that I will not allow this to happen. I will conquer the Republic to preserve it if I must."

"Then it seems you make your offer unrefusable."

"I'm afraid so."

There was a long silence as both men sat pondering.

"What happened to you, Revan?" the Chancellor asked. "You are not the same man who made these very demands of me almost eight years ago."

"A rare quirk in the Force has given me the ability to become whatever the galaxy needs me to be. Chancellor, you need me now. I can be the evil tyrant who conquered the galaxy and made it whole if that is what must be done to resurrect the Republic. Understand, however, that I wish nothing more than for the killing to stop and to be able to return to my home on Dantooine with my wife Bastila. I can't do that until I've restored order to the galaxy.

"Whether it is by conquest or alliance, it must be done and I am the only one who can do it.

"I can be your savior or conqueror. The choice is up to you."

* * *

Some things never changed, especially on Nar Shaddaa. True to form, the Refugee Sector still stank every bit as much as it had the last time Rigel had been on the Smuggler's Moon. But he was thankful they hadn't had to spend much time there after setting the _Whitecap_ down for some repairs. After a little poking around, he found some of his dad's old investments - garages and warehouses and such - in a less-rancid part of the city and quickly brought his beloved ship back to familiar ground.

So much had changed so little over the years, and even less had since he'd last been home. Between his most recent job and the huge diversion with the Sith and the Nihil war, it had been close to three months since Rigel's deliciously dirty boots had graced the equally filthy bare concrete floor of his apartment. It wasn't the fanciest of the pads he had scattered around the moon and the galaxy, but it was by far the most snug and cozy.

Atton and Mira had been far more impressed by the neighborhood than his flat. Specifically, the cantinas. There was one on every street corner, and as Rigel demonstrated during their four-night grand tour, he knew all the people of nearly every one of them. Tiny and cluttered as it was, his apartment had soon become home base for a series of epic hangovers for several nights in a row.

At the start of the second week, though, the trips to the cantinas became less recreational and more business-minded. As soon as he'd set down on the Smuggler's Moon, Rigel had put his feelers out for some of his regular employers, and the news of his return gradually filtered through the double-blind drops and bifurcated relays to the men he worked for. Contact by any number of them was always at a cantina, so the trips were mainly to relay messages back and forth.

In addition to getting back in touch with his employers, Rigel had resurrected the Talions. Atton and Mira had decided to come on board with him. So here they all were, sitting at the bar at his favorite cantina, _The Broken Span_, joking, laughing, and sharing stories over juma and Corellian rum while Rigel waited for his contact.

The large holofeed monitor above the bar brazenly displayed the barely-concealed plastic chest of the local Twi'lek news anchor babe. Rigel could tell she was new to the channel because he could still recognize the southern Ryloth accent in her Huttese. Even above the racket of the cantina, it wasn't hard to tell what she was talking about--after all, it was all the holos were ever squawking about on the new.

"_...On the galactic scene, more breaking news from Coruscant,_" the busty Twi'lek announced. "_With the approval and support of the Supreme Chancellor, Lord Revan of the Sith Empire seized power yesterday in a bloodless coup. Despite fears to the contrary, Revan and the Chancellor both claim the move is one of mutual economic and strategic benefit, citing it more as an alliance than a take-over. Lord Revan has pledged his vast new army in the defense and preservation of the current Republic and both he and the Chancellor have agreed that the Senate will remain as well as other aspects of the Republic's long-standing democratic system that will not be altered. Certain issues of authority, autonomy of allied star systems, and trade laws are yet to be worked out among the parties involved..._"

Rigel had heard the story so many times already he'd learned to tune it out. It didn't really matter to him who was running the galaxy, anyway. There was always going to be bounties.

Mira had swapped drinks with Atton and was laughing uproariously while he told a story about being robbed to the skin by a beautiful Twi'lek in a bar when Rigel felt someone bump into his shoulder. He turned around and saw a Trandoshan standing sheepishly behind him.

"_I fell to the floor. Sorry,_" the lizard-like alien apologized.

Rigel smiled. "_It's no problem,_" he responded in the alien's tongue.

The man was a messenger, telling him he had a meeting in a back room with one of his employers, finally. It was always the same back room, just a thin wall away from the dancers' showers so the sound of running water splashing off naked Twi'lek and Zeltron employees was a constant background noise to cover the voices of whoever was meeting. For some of the clientèle of this cantina, no precaution was enough.

It was Bajer who was waiting to see him. Rigel liked Bajer. For a man high up in the crime society, he had the oddest sense of moral decency. He was almost religious about only conducting his illegal activities against rival criminal organizations and companies he considered corrupt. The man also didn't do spice, didn't do whores, and wasn't taken to excessive drinking. All in all, he was the most resoundingly incongruous crime lord Rigel had ever known.

"It's great to see you again, Rigel." Bajer shook his hand. "Where've you been? Where's Lara?"

Rigel sat down at one end of a tiny table under the dim light of the back room, Bajer at the other end. "Lara's dead, Bajer."

"I'm sorry to hear that. She'll be missed by the Runners." That was the street name of his crime business, the Long Runners. Their business was in taking down other criminal establishments.

"Yeah, I'll miss her too," Rigel replied, not really feeling like reminiscing at the moment. "But don't worry, the Talions aren't going anywhere. In fact, I brought two more into the fold."

He leaned closer to Bajer. "You know Mira?" Bajer nodded. Everyone in the bounty business on Nar Shaddaa did. "She's one of the new Talions."

A wide grin split Bajer's stubbly face. "We're going to be doing a lot of business again, Salo." They shook hands. "Could you excuse me a moment? I gotta take a leak. Be right back."

Rigel nodded and sat back in the uncomfortable little chair as Bajer left the room. The noise of the showers kept on, hypnotizing him.

"Hello again, Rigel Salo."

He jumped in his seat at the unexpected voice behind him. Turning, he saw a new figure step into the dim light and introduce himself. "I'm Commander Jalek representing the Sith Empire."

Sighing, Rigel laid his head back onto thin air; an uncomfortable position, he soon found. "Frack it! How does that guy keep finding me?"

Without waiting for an invitation, Jalek sat down across from Rigel. He slid something across the table beneath a hand. "Lord Revan extends his thanks for your services in the war. Consider this a retainer on what you are owed for said services."

Jalek lifted his hand and Rigel was suddenly staring at a pile of the highest-denominator credit chips he'd ever seen. It had to be at least fifty thousand. While he stared mutely, Jalek stood up.

"The Sith Empire looks forward to doing business with you, Rigel Salo. We'll be in touch."

As the Sith up and left, Rigel sighed again. He supposed paying him was the least Revan could do for dragging him and Lara into a war that had cost Lara her life.

After he concluded his short meeting with Bajer, picking up a few possible jobs to look into, Rigel returned to the bar. He found Atton and Mira well on their way towards another alcoholic meltdown. Those arms that were not occupied with intoxicating drinks were draped over each other's shoulders. Mira was telling a story about three Gand and a runaway Tauntaun, to Atton's helpless amusement.

Rigel smiled at the two as he sat back down next to them and ordered another rum.

He toasted to their freedom.

* * *

Unlike Coruscant, Taris, Kuat, or most other urban/industrial worlds around the galaxy, Devrita still had a stunning natural beauty to it. Sweeping mountain ranges, rolling vistas, fair plains, and majestic forests covered most of its three continents, much like Alderaan or Naboo. Much of Devrita's trade was for its vast, still largely untouched, natural resources. The giant cities dotted throughout its enormous wilderness, connected by networks of superhighways and sea lanes, served primarily as ports for the planet's economy, selling massive amounts of raw materials to space-faring merchants and importing ever-increasing amounts of pre-fabricated building materials and other finished products for the expansion of Devritan civilization.

Devrita's cities were nowhere near the size and scale of other galactic commerce centers like Coruscant, where the buildings stretched for miles into the sky. The cities were relatively low-rise; the tallest of the buildings reaching less than a mile high, so transportation was still primarily pedestrian foot traffic and land-borne transports. But even without the interlocking grids of hover-traffic winding between the tops of the buildings, some of Devrita's skylines were among the most spectacular in the galaxy, outside of Coruscant.

Coruscant might be the shining jewel of the Republic, but Devrita was Kuryama's favorite. It was her home.

It had been too long since she'd set foot on home soil, smelled the balmy sea air, and walked the streets of the capital city, Les Santeilles. A bright coastal city, the Les Santeilles seaport had the largest fishing industry on the planet. Kuryama's father had once worked for one its giant fleets.

Her mother Nara's house was located in a small neighborhood a few miles inland, in a relatively peaceful part of the city. Not far off in the distance, the mighty buildings of Les Santeilles's center stood like guardian spirits as Kuryama strode the sidewalks leading from house to house, trying to remember who had lived where when she'd last been home.

Children were playing calcio in the streets, Human, Twi'lek, Rodian, and Zabrak youngsters alike all laughing gleefully as they went about their game.

Though she couldn't bring herself to part with her lightsabre, Kuryama had left her gray Jedi robes at a charity service after visiting a fashion outlet to attire herself in local wear. The change of clothes was a way of saying to herself that for once she was here to stay.

At last she arrived at house she sought.

Ten years hadn't brought much change to its appearance, but that was only the outside. Kuryama knew on the inside, things would be different. But the change, she knew, was not one to be feared. In fact, she looked forward to seeing just how much had changed.

She approached the door, trying to think of what she would say. Before she could even knock, it slid open to reveal a woman in her mid- to late fifties. Her black hair, though it had begun to gray at the edges, still remained lusciously smooth and vibrant. The soft wrinkles on her face only served to more maturely define her natural attractiveness. Her eyes, however, straight gray irises beneath ever-so-slightly slanted eyelids, were the same as they had always been.

Nara looked her up and down, her eyes settling on the lightsabre that hung from her belt for only the briefest of moments. She took in the soft white leather jacket she wore over a snug red shirt, the crisply-cut, warm brown pants, and shiny black leather boots.

Her face radiated a welcoming smile and she embraced her daughter.

"I'm finally back, mother," Kuryama said as she hugged Nara tightly, her eyes wet with joyful tears.

"I knew you would someday, Kury," Nara responded.

After a few moments, Nara gestured her inside. "Come in, come in, please."

Giddy with happiness at being home at last, Kuryama put down her small travel case just inside the doorway and looked about fondly. "Is Kurt home?" she asked.

Nara nodded. "Upstairs." Raising her voice, she called up the stairs. "Kurt! Kurt dear, your mother is home!"

A few moments later they heard a door open, footsteps, and a boy appeared a the end of the stairs. Gray eyes gazed down on Kuryama. She had to remind herself to breathe.

"Are you staying this time?" Kurt asked hopefully.

Kuryama smiled. "Yes, Kurt. I'm staying."

At her reply, he dashed down the stairs and hurled himself into her arms. "I'm so glad you're back, Mom!" he cried happily.

When Kurt finally let go of Kuryama, Nara gestured to him. "Show her what you've been learning."

A delighted smile came to his face and he took something from one of his pockets; just an old depleted power cell. He held it out in an open palm and closed his eyes. For a moment, nothing happened, then the cell began to rise as if of its own accord. It hovered in mid-air for a few seconds before falling back into his hand.

Opening his eyes, Kurt smiled proudly up at Kuryama.

"I'm so glad you're home."


End file.
